Dennis Zhao

Reader feedback for my latest post about how to use AI and my PRD template to never have to write a PRD from scratch again. Read the full post here: https://lnkd.in/eJjVXJUJ

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Who's got a Waymo experience to share? I just had my first truly bad one. First, I should say I love Waymo. It's not in many places yet, but it's poised to be everywhere soon. The app tells me I've done 26 rides covering 97 miles in SF and mostly it's been an exceptional experience. Apart from some quibbles like getting dropped off a block away up a big hill, it's a zen-like experience and a smooth better-than-human-driver experience on the way to wherever I'm going. But I think we're all bound to experience some hiccups as we journey to the future. In my case, I was taking a trip into the Financial District for an event and I had 6 minutes to spare given the ETA. Then all of the sudden it decides it wants to pull into the left lane, which is filled with parked cars. I sit at first amused at this decision. It pulls up right behind the parked car and waits. Then it goes through a dance of deciding it wants to get back in the original lane (everybody loves to snub a driverless car in traffic!) and pulling ever closer to the parked car ahead. Miraculously the driver of the parked car shows up, loads his trunk and departs with ease. The Waymo decides the next course of action is to pull directly behind the next parked car in the lane. My amusement fades. I call support via the touchscreen. My 6 minute buffer that had evaporated to 1 minute suddenly tells me I'll be 13 minutes late, a driver assistance team is dispatched and on their way. Yikes! Then magically (I think they manually took control), the Waymo behaves like a normal driver and inches back into the normal lane and I'm on my way, arriving 1 minute late to the meeting. So in the end, a bit of time stress for someone who really likes to be on time (I started a time company after all) and not really world-ending. In fact, despite this unfortunate experience, I'll be loyally riding again. And so I guess this ends as a parable about what Product Market Fit looks like. If you can mostly deliver superior experiences, there's room for rough edges. (pictured below, mom's first trip in a Waymo)

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I'm always so delighted by folk's reactions to ChatPRD. This breakdown by Aakash Gupta takes a critical eye to whether or not ChatPRD is useful, how it compares to other OOTB solutions, and reiterates that it's writing style is where it really shines. Loving all the comments highlighting some of the common themes we hear from other PMs using the product, good and bad: Pros + writing style + speed + customization options + helping think around corners Questions ? is my data secure ? shouldn't I be... thinking ? how does it know the context ? are PRDs even useful I think many of the doubts are philosophical (and will shift over time!) vs. unsurmountable issues in the product experience. I'm excited to keep building so folks can adapt and adopt more AI tools when building awesome products.

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Hiring your first Product Manager One of the hardest roles to hire for young companies (10-15 engineers), is their first PM. Every founder wants a unicorn candidate: an experienced IC PM with 5+ years of experience in the same/adjacent domain. The challenge is that most top candidates: (a) don't want to take a career risk working at a no-name company, and if they do, (b) want to come in as Head of Product or lead a team from the get-go. It's a source of endless frustration for founders, but it's the reality. I recommend accepting this reality and evaluating four alternate paths / archetypes to hiring your first PM: (a) "Failed founder": Find a failed startup in your space (or in an adjacent space, or even in the same broad space, eg B2B SaaS or DevOps) and hire the founder as your first PM. These people have shown the agency to manifest talent and capital, build a product, get some customers, and do this all scrappily. These are the attributes you need in your first PM. (b) "Junior PM": Sacrifice your desire for product experience and target PMs with ~2 years of product experience. Offer them the opportunity to become the first product person at your company and work closely with you, the founder. This has a higher success rate than going after more experienced candidates, but the risk is they might flounder after joining your startup. (c) "Second year MBA": There are many PMs with 2-3 years of experience, who are in business school, getting their MBA. Bring on a second year MBA (with prior PM experience, or maybe even prior Engineering, Design, Marketing or Analyst experience) as a Product Intern, several months before they graduate. They might have the same inexperience risks as path (b) above, but you get a chance to try before you buy, and can slowly ramp them up over a few quarters to build trust and take on fulsome projects. With top b-schools having an employment rate of ~40-50%, this could be a powerful option. (d) "Existing Employee": Convert an existing employee (Engineer, Designer, Marketer, Business Analyst) into a PM. Here's an article I wrote on this option: https://lnkd.in/gXYN5ETj tldr Founders of young companies need to think different when trying to hire their first PM. Just going after the ideal candidate will likely not work for most startups. FWIW, my order of preference among the alternatives above is (d) > (a) > (c) > (b).

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Hey LinkedIn Team & LinkedIn PMs fam! Hope you're all doing well as H2'24 kicks off, bringing in the season of festivity and higher revenue. 🎉 As a Product Leader, I love exploring premiumness or loyalty driving products myself to refine my Product thinking nuggets for user retention. In that context, I had subscribed to LinkedIn Business Premium couple of years back, which renews every year. I have been and am still a LinkedIn Premium Subscriber (as I write this). Interestingly, despite being a Premium member, I continue to receive a barrage of ads and messages prompting me to upgrade... to Premium. 🤔 It makes me wonder if there's a disconnect somewhere within the system - perhaps a hiccup in the CDP or Sales pipelines not syncing with the CRM or DMP? I'm curious to learn from fellow LinkedIn PMs about the best practices they follow to ensure real-time data consistency across different platforms. Specifically for ads or growth campaigns! Additionally, I wonder if there's a possibility, dear LinkedIn PMs fam, to introduce a "Don't show me ads" toggle for dedicated Premium customers? 🤔 This is not a rant, just a request :) Edge cases exist, and I understand your roadmap might be full! Let's keep building great features :) #ProductManagement #DataConsistency #UserExperience #Product

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🪄✨🤖 Magical AI Experiences 🪄✨🤖 In yesterday’s Stratechery Daily Update, Ben Thompson describes his magical first ride with Waymo: “The ride itself was, on any objective basis, pretty uneventful…What was really surprising to me, though, was how I felt about the entire thing. After Waymo greeted me by name, explained the process (which only happens on your first ride), and dropped me off with a cheery “Happy Friday”, I felt a twinge of — what is this?! — sadness as it drove away. I felt like I had just made a new friend, and now my friend was driving away after too short a time together.” Later in the update, he comments, “What was the most striking was how this experience made me think about Google: I felt a genuine surge of affection for the Internet giant.” ^^This is what we strive for at OfOne (YC W23). With voice AI, restaurant brands have a unique opportunity to rethink and deliver a differentiated brand experiences. When done correctly, AI can be delightful and immersive. We’re working really hard every day to enable our partners to provide this to their customers. The technology is there, and it's getting better every day. The brands that lean in and execute on this well will win customers hearts. Link to article below. If you aren’t yet a subscriber, you should be!

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My team has been hard at work building the next generation developer experience at Stripe—so proud of them for unveiling a step change for people building on Stripe. Today, we're introducing three big new features: 1) Sandboxes: the next-generation of Stripe test mode. You can *finally* create multiple, isolated environments—handy for building a new feature, or just playing around with something new safely. 2) Workbench: our reimagined developer space, available everywhere in the Stripe dashboard. Inspect anything on the dashboard and get under the hood with the raw JSON in just one click. 3) Event Destinations: our webhook tools are evolving to make it easier to get just the events you need, and now delivering to cloud destinations for the first time. Check out the next generation of Stripe—and get early access—here: https://beta.stripe.dev

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Why'd I make the jump to fractional from full-time? Here's a bit about how I thought about this jump myself: 👍 1 - Saying “yes” to product: After a career building products at Airbnb and early-stage cos, I still fundamentally loved the craft of product management. So continuing to build products and teams in some capacity was a no-brainer. 📕 2 - Learning from new products, industries & teams: I'm a curious guy. I wanted to work in a capacity that enabled me to work on, and ultimately learn from, a diversity of teams, products, and industries. And after having spent 5+ years at Airbnb, I was also eager to get back into early-stage product and company building (which is ultimately what attracted me to a career in tech and what led me to work on the founding team of my first startup during college). 📈 3 - More impact: My career has spanned building products and teams across growth and early-stage cos and in product & non-product roles. Given this, I felt uniquely positioned to drive product and business impact for cos at the earliest stages. And doing this in a fractional capacity, where I would be able to work simultaneously across multiple products and cross-pollinate the learnings from one company to the next, would enable me to deliver even more impact than I otherwise could have. 💪 4 - Increased autonomy, control: I also wanted to experience a relationship with product mgmt that afforded more autonomy. I wanted more control over what I worked on and how I spent my time. Through this, I wanted to develop even more control over my career and my trajectory. 👨‍💼 5 - Scratching that entrepreneurial itch: After having worked in growth-stage tech for more years than I (tbh originally) anticipated, it was time to re-tend to the entrepreneurial bug (that's always lurking). I wanted to get back to being an owner and building something from the ground up.

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Strategic alignment across product and field is complex and not easy to get right, but it's a pleasure to work alongside Brett Crane, Trevor Jett (Childers), and Jarod Greene. It's wonderful to be in conversation with them, sharing what we have learned, in this webinar: https://lnkd.in/gc-qp7Hk

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ENOUGH WITH THE FRAMEWORKS! If you've worked with me, you've probably heard me say that. Product teams should be focused on driving outcome and impact, not falling in love with the process. And that's something Peter Yang from Roblox knows all too well. We had a great conversation on Next Gen Builders about how the PM role is evolving, how to use #AI to focus on more important work (like talking to customers), and more. Tune in to our conversation: https://lnkd.in/dY-AZh2s

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Data doesn’t guarantee Startup Success. Even Google – one of the most data-driven companies in the world – has seen its fair share of product failures. From Google+ to Stadia and Glass, billions were invested in ideas that didn’t quite make it. This isn’t unique to Google. It’s a reminder that data, while powerful, doesn’t guarantee success. It can tell us what happened, but not always why – and certainly not what will happen. - In a world where technology and customer expectations shift rapidly, how do we keep up? - How do we ensure success in such an uncertain landscape? Let’s share insights and experiences on navigating this unpredictability: - How do you identify and achieve product-market fit (PMF)? - What strategies have you found effective in future-proofing products? - How do you use data to support innovation, without letting it dictate every move? Your thoughts? #Innovation #ProductManagement #PMF #Tech #Uncertainty #Data #GrowthMindset

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Gathering and prioritizing customer feedback - at scale! - is an incredible challenge. A decade ago, we standardized on portals where customers can contribute, sort, search, comment, and vote on ideas. Product Managers spent hours, days, and weeks triaging responses, responding to ideas, and generally becoming frustrated with not being able to keep up with the amount of incoming feedback! Today, Pendo launches Listen as part of the Pendo One Platform. It is such a massive step forward in how we can capture customer feedback from seemingly endless sources, collate, summarize, intelligently route, validate, and take action on it. It's really magically and scales beautifully. I think it focuses in on the difference between hearing the voice of your customer and truly listening. Hearing is about a single sense. Listening involves all of your senses. Pendo Listen deeply integrates our quantitative analytics, integrations, and replay to Listen to your customer and take action. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eTPR4HiQ

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Weekly Small Talk: How to run a great project kickoff feat. Meta Product designer A conversation I had with Meta Product Designer about the little things she appreciates from a PM. Tips from Kimi: - Don't run a kickoff when you're not ready - Synthesize and read into the collected materials - Anticipate the questions and prep in advance - Delegation - Work in sequence If you found this post helpful, please share it with a friend and consider subscribing if you haven’t already. Cheers!

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I recently wrote a PRD with AI and it worked out surprisingly well. Tomorrow, I'm sharing a new post with: - My personal PRD template - My AI prompt to fill in the template with real customer feedback - My favorite PRD examples and AI tools 📌 Sign up to get my PRD template, AI prompt, and examples in your inbox: https://creatoreconomy.so/

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One of the fun parts of starting a new job is getting to ask “Why” a thousand times a day.* Why is this our strategy? Why is this our target customer? Why choose this problem? Why do we believe this market is big enough? Why do we believe our solution is differentiated? Lean Startup Canvas is a handy tool to remind ourselves of the kinds of questions to ask. If there are questions about revenue model, market size, or similar “what needs to be true for this to be big enough, and how confident are we that those assumptions can become true one day”, I like to model out all of those assumptions, and then see which we need to de-risk.* If there are questions about what customer we want to target, what Jobs To Be Done we want them to hire us for, what would make us a differentiated solution, I like to turn to generative research. This starts with recruiting 6-10 people who 1) have no prior relationship with me or anyone at the company, 2) are likely to represent the kind of customer we would focus on. Then, we should interview them with open ended questions that stay within the context of our focus area. And don’t sleep on the power of ethnographic research, diary studies, card sorting exercises, etc. Let them take us to where they want to go, what’s on their mind, what feelings do they have. What we’re hunting for are flare ups of emotion that can reveal a worthy pain point. These are subtle — an edge to their voice that lasts half a sentence, a big sigh or rolling of the eyes, a shaking of the head. We’re fully present during these interviews, because these moments are easy to miss. When we see those moments, we pounce. “Can you say more about that?” “How does that make you feel?” “How do you deal with that today?” These are the nuggets of gold that can lead us to a problem worthy of Product Market Fit, if we can validate that the problem is 1) wide spread enough, 2) solvable in a differentiated way, and 3) can be monetized sufficiently. What we absolutely must not do is pretend we’re doing generative research but actually we’re user testing solutions we already have in mind. Evaluative user testing is a great and under-utilized tool, but it’s not the same thing. If we go looking for proof that we are right, we’re pretty likely to find it because human brains are great at confirmation bias. Don’t: “What if I presented you with this solution, that could do x, y, z. Would you use it?” Do: “You mentioned [problem hypothesis]. Tell me about the last time [problem hypothesis] happened. What was it like? What did you do? How did it make you feel?” We’ll get to the solution design soon enough, but until we have confidence and clarity about what problem we want to solve, any solutions we do build are hard to evaluate.* —————— *If you’re interested in reading the footnotes as well as my work-in-progress thoughts (today: “good and cheap” > “great and expensive”), sign up for my free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/g44P3_rB

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Hot take: Product and design are the same job (and designers are better at it). The job is figuring out what to build, why, and communicating that in a way a team can execute against. In big companies I see designers operating like junior PMs anyway — they get briefed into a PRD and then lead the feature from there to shipped. Their edge is they are highly literate communicating visually in addition to verbally. Where designers often get stuck is a belief that their PM will always know more about the problem space and customer needs than they do. In fact, design work is so detail-oriented, I think the opposite is actually true. Designers have to *really* know their customer to translate a PRD into an elegant experience. They just don’t get the same credit for it. TLDR; PMs, level up your visual design skills. The designers are coming. What do you see as the future of the product / design function?

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Customer feedback is the gold mine of product growth. But how do you sift through the 1000s of feedback touchpoints and prioritize what truly matters? Here's my take: 1. Listen deeply, not just widely Forget just collecting a ton of responses from all touch points.  Listen deeply to understand the "why" behind the feedback. Is it a minor annoyance, or a roadblock stopping users in their tracks? Focus on qualitative data alongside quantitative metrics for a well-rounded picture. 2. Categorize and Analyze Remember, not all feedback is created equal. Instead of getting lost in individual feedback, categorize feedback by theme, feature request, or pain point. Analyze the data to identify the most impactful areas for improvement. 3. Data-Driven Prioritization Use a prioritization framework that considers factors like customer impact, business value, and feasibility. By prioritizing and acting on customer feedback, product managers become champions for a product customers love. What are your best practices for turning feedback into action? #productmanagement #customerfeedback #productdevelopment #customersatisfaction

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I’ve learned that the best PMs are also the best salespeople—for their product and team. Over the years, I’ve seen firsthand how passion and belief in what you’re building make all the difference. The PMs who stand out aren’t just focused on the product—they care deeply about their team, and that energy inspires everyone to rally behind the vision. If you can’t sell your vision, no one else will.

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After 10+ years working with early-stage startups it’s fair to say I’ve seen I’ve seen some things (& some things I will never unsee), learned some things, earned some stripes, some scars, and some measure of expertise (one hopes) helping more than a dozen startups find product-market fit. While I’ve enjoyed year-long runways at well-funded startups that were eventually acquired, or went public, or very publicly imploded—what really taught me the real meaning of Lean startup was working with self-funded founders who had ten compelling concepts but resources to build one. When you don’t have a year to be wrong; you learn to get it right very fast. If you are a founder facing your own set of high stakes decisions & tradeoffs; we can help. For free. You can book a 1 hour chat with us to talk through all the things racing through your head. We know what’s involved in getting something tested, validated, and built; this is what we do every day all day. We might not have all the answers but there is a good chance we can give you some clarity, some calm, some options. Call us at 1.844.4FLAGRANT or DM me. And if you want to get a sense of what we are like as hoomans- check out our Delightful Reveal series. It’s all the things we have been reading, watching, listening to, & enjoying. https://lnkd.in/gfrz9tQS #startups #entrepreneurship #socialentrepreneurs #innovation

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