Shreyas Doshi
@shreyas
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Led a couple of Stripe's most successful products from their early days. Led & grew several products at Twitter, Google, Yahoo. Now advising, coaching, teaching
Oakland, CA
Joined March 2007
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Mission: Why
Vision: What
Strategy: How
Segmentation: Who
Positioning: Where
Roadmap: When
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Advanced time management principles:
(for senior product managers & leaders)
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Let’s talk about High Agency: an attitude I’ve seen in every successful product manager & leader I’ve known.
Some ppl are born/raised with High Agency. It can also be developed later in life.
High agency is a prerequisite for making a profound impact in one's life & work
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Just a few notes to myself (a driven & ambitious person):
1) Kings are overrated and usually unhappy. It is much better to be kingmaker.
2) Eventually, everyone realizes that they don’t want to be Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. How quickly do you want to get there?
3) Legacy is
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There are Good Product Managers and there are Great Product Managers. There are also Okay Product Managers and Bad Product Managers, but we will focus on the Good and the Great here.
Good Product Managers, Great Product Managers, a thread:
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A B2B Product Management Story: on discovering problems that customers actually care about
Very visual story thread👇🏾
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A thread of product management frameworks:
(this might be useful if you are a product manager, product leader, or founder)
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Some people who succeed wildly in school don’t achieve their apparent potential in the business world. Some others who do okay (or worse) in school manage to build an extremely successful life. Why is that?
What we learn in school & must unlearn in business & in life:
(1/10)
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As they grow in size, teams within megacorps and startups tend to implicitly bias more towards Project Thinking and not enough Product Thinking.
Product Thinking is a mindset and a process that, once you see, you cannot unsee it.
Product Thinking, Project Thinking, a thread:
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Since time immemorial, when a CEO asks a PM at Product Review, “what do you need to 10X users/revenue?”, “what will make you go faster?”, etc the PM steadfastly responds “We need [N] more engineers”. The Eng Mgr nods approvingly.
A story thread, with some hard truths to swallow:
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A hilarious fact of corporate life is that your odds of getting promoted will be higher if you strategically escalate multiple times to your senior management while delivering your team’s goals than if you manage to deliver the very same goals without ever escalating.
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“You are great at execution, the team loves you, but you need to be more strategic”
Hearing this feedback from your direct manager or your skip manager can be very confusing.
And for highly capable product people who consistently get things done, this theme of “you need to be
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Why do smart product people & teams often build products with mediocre or no impact?
A cautionary thread of biases and fallacies we encounter when building products👇🏾
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Corporate life is just repeating this loop until you retire:
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4 stages of maturity as a manager
(trigger warning: might feel too real)
👇🏾
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First-time founders, CEOs, and even employees should understand the playbook of the Incompetent Leader (IL).
The IL is savvy & charismatic, and excels at 4 things:
1) Feign competence
2) Create confusion
3) Buy time
4) Fail up
The IL playbook & what to do about it
👇🏾
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When you start managing someone, use your 1:1s in the first couple of weeks to understand their Context. Most new managers focus solely on Content (projects/goals/blockers). But Context + Content lets you move faster from Rapport to Credibility to Trust.
Example 1:1 questions:
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Why product management is hard
(and why good product management matters)
1/15 👇🏾
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3 types of product leaders:
1) The Operator
2) The Craftsperson
3) The Visionary
It is important for you as a startup founder or CEO, product manager, or a product leader to deeply understand these types, as you make decisions on whom to hire or whom to work for.
Thread👇🏾
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How to write docs for busy execs at work:
Short doc (2-3 pgs)
Lead with the gist in 3-4 lines
Structure -
Context (why)
Why it matters (so what)
Proposal (how)
Recommended actions (what next)
Make it flow
Don’t pack everything you know
Footnotes, links, appendix for details
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While at Google, I learned the power of Legacy Momentum:
I felt like a genius after $1B revenue launches.
Then one day, I realized that I wasn’t a genius at all.
We were benefiting from smart decisions & actions of early Googlers I had never even met.
That is Legacy Momentum.
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Moving your team from slides to long form writing is not just a process change. It is first and foremost a culture change.
A writing culture values comprehension over aesthetics, nuance over certainty, clarity over charisma, deliberation over impulse, and rigor over hierarchy.
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Being a PM is just saying these things until you retire:
What is our goal here?
Is there an agenda for this meeting?
I'll take notes
What is the status?
Promising idea, but not now
Biweekly, as in every other week
Any way to get it done faster?
We should sync more often
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Product Management—in 1 tweet.
Role:
Define the product & coordinate actions across the org to enable its success
Success:
User adoption
Business impact
Skills:
Common sense
Immense empathy
Influential communication
Traits:
Low ego
Deep care
High agency
Simple, but not easy.
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If you’re a Startup trying to compete with a Megacorp—the 800-pound Gorilla in the space—you need to understand the tax inherent to being a Gorilla
And then you need to make that tax work against the Gorilla—with your product's positioning & features
A thread on Gorilla taxes👇🏾
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In life, don’t mistake:
1. Job for Career
2. Career for Identity
3. Net-worth for Self-worth
4. Rewards for Purpose
5. Purpose for Meaning
6. Opinion for Truth
7. Flattery for Friendship
8. Proximity for Presence
9. Intelligence for Wisdom
10. Your Mind for Your Self
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Product metrics categories:
1. Health metrics
2. Usage metrics
3. Adoption metrics
4. Satisfaction metrics
5. Ecosystem metrics
6. Outcome metrics
When conceiving your metrics, consider each of these categories & pick the right metrics across them.
A product metrics primer👇🏾
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George Bernard Shaw said:
“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place”
Possibly the most important communication lesson, ever.
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Product failure is expensive.
And look around, it’s common.
Why do products fail?
Is it becos we can't build the product?
No
Is it becos we launched it N weeks late?
Almost never
So what is it?
The 7 Biases of Product teams, a very visual thread:
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Good managers, what they do, how they think & act.
A thread👇🏾
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I do not know of any product that failed because the team used a sub-optimal sprint process, issue tracking tool, or North Star metric.
I know of plenty of products that failed because they did not understand their customers, picked the wrong problem, or could not differentiate.
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Highly underrated: having a wise friend or mentor who can tell you if you are being an idiot when you’re making an important career or life decision.
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An underrated reason why some ambitious high slope people change jobs every few years is that their org/company will always maintain some residual memory of their skills & abilities from 1-2 yrs ago and cannot fully appreciate who they are now. A job change resets the y-intercept
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Listening well is a rare superpower.
I had been a bad listener most of my life.
Then I fixed that a few years ago.
The result?
Night & day difference in my critical thinking & leadership ability.
A thread on learning the art of listening v2.0
(with lessons from movies)
👇🏾
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At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the British rowing team unexpectedly won the Men’s Eight Rowing gold medal.
One simple question was instrumental in their success.
“Will it make the boat go faster?”
This question could also be vital for your early-stage team & company.
1/15👇🏾
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Technique can make you good.
Mindset makes you world-class.
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Professional update:
After 5+ years at Stripe, today was my last day. Many emotions, but mainly feeling blessed to have had the opportunity to work with 100s of rigorous, energetic & kind folks at Stripe. My sincere thanks to all Stripe colleagues & friends. You know who you are.
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Everything seems simpler than it truly is, when you are not the one working on it.
Everything seems more complex than it truly is, when you are the one working it.
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We need to stop pretending that *all* product decisions require mathematical proof.
Trust me, it's fine to use instinct & creative insight for major product decisions.
And if you like moving fast, it's often required.
The trick is when to do it, who does it & how it gets done.
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While it has many upsides, a huge downside of taking a fast-paced job in a top tier company is the sheer lack of time during weekdays to get basic life tasks done: finances, home maintenance, various appointments. You try to catch up over weekends, but that further drains energy.
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The first law of B2B SaaS:
Excel is quite easy to compete against and quite hard to beat.
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Beyond a certain level in your career, there is no permanent solution to a lack of time. The best way to cope with this new reality is to be extremely clear on the 1-2 things you must focus on doing really well in a given day, given week, given month (and actually get them done).
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Most Execution problems are really
1) Strategy problems, or
2) Interpersonal problems, or
3) Culture problems
Good leaders execute well because they understand this. They fix the root problem.
Bad leaders struggle because they are always applying band-aids.
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The day you became a clearer thinker, you:
-started by identifying the real goal
-decomposed vague concepts
-framed the right questions
-sought more data or experience
-listened to multiple perspectives
-assessed upsides & downsides
-examined your own biases
-acted like an owner
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A tragedy of many tech companies is that diligent work that enables a flawless launch is taken for granted but heroic effort that fixes a botched launch is loudly lauded.
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A thread with 7 high value ideas & habits that took me more than a decade of my career (and dozens of costly mistakes) to learn:
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A thread of 15 principles for product work (most of which I learned the hard way)
👇🏾
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One downside of being a go-getter who Gets Sh*t Done is that you assume everyone derives the same satisfaction from checking off items on a todo list, so you push people towards action without pausing to first inspire, which makes you less persuasive & hampers your career growth.
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One downside of being a very high agency person is that you are wired to never blame other people or bad luck, which then leads you to internalize failures & nasty jolts as being on you even though you may have tried your very best. Longterm, this is extremely emotionally taxing.
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What gets measured gets managed, and what gets incentivized gets manipulated.
Measure with care, incentivize with even greater care.
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As a senior executive, you care a lot about your teams moving fast.
So when a team misses its committed launch date, you show great displeasure.
You demand more accountability.
You make an example out of this team.
Other teams see this.
They are not stupid.
So they learn.
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For clear writing, answer these questions
1. What Am I Really Trying To Say
2. Why Should People Care
3. What Is The Most Important Point
4. What Is The Easiest Way To Understand The Most Important Point
5. How Do I Want The Reader To Feel
6. What Should The Reader Do Next
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As a leader, how can you
- Make a major, singular impact
- Truly empower team members
- Grow them with “stretch tasks”
- Create flow for self & others
- Avoid burnout
Answer: Radical Delegation
(note: not for everyone, but game-changing for leaders & teams who are ready for it)
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7 questions for better thinking
1) Is that a fact or my opinion?
2) What is my % confidence on this?
3) What do I care about most?
4) How might another person view this?
5) Is it truly a binary choice?
6) What would I do if I weren't afraid?
7) Am I deciding or justifying?
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An unfortunate fact of corporate life is that a subset of your colleagues who claim to have “strong opinions, weakly held” in reality demonstrate “strong opinions, aggressively defended, rarely reconsidered, but happily changed if that’s what the bosses want”.
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Since time immemorial, when a CEO asks a PM at Product Review, “what do you need to 10X users/revenue?”, “what will make you go faster?”, etc
The PM steadfastly responds “We need [N] more engineers”. The Eng Mgr nods approvingly
A story thread, with some hard truths to swallow:
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Tell me your career story
What is working well for you here / not working well
What type of work energizes you most / least
How do you prefer to get feedback & get recognized
How is your relationship with key team members
What is the most pressing issue I can assist you with
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Facts leaders must accept sooner or later
1) People aren’t exactly like you
2) No one can read your mind
3) So clarify & repeat-repeat-repeat
4) You can’t force people to change
5) You can listen better
6) And thank people more often
I stubbornly resisted this. Don’t be me
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One huge mistake that many managers make is to tell a senior member of their team:
“<XYZ> is entirely your decision. I am here to serve you. I will defer to whatever your decision is here.”
This happens at all levels e.g. a Founder/CEO delegating “product strategy” to the CPO.
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A list of curated lists for:
CTO & eng mgmt
by
@kuchin
h/t
@chaddickerson
Staff eng
by
@Lethain
Notable memos in tech
by
@sriramk
Top 100 PM resources
by
@sachinrekhi
Share more👇🏾
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Apple Pie Position:
A statement that instantly elevates the person who is saying it and is simultaneously hard for anyone else to push back on, and so everyone avoids the personal risk and just nods “yes”, even though its actual value in this specific situation might be
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A tragedy of many organizations is that those who execute impeccably without any drama are deemed less competent than those who execute slightly incompetently while managing up impeccably.
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Product Management
Role:
Define the product & orchestrate actions across the org to enable its success
Success:
User adoption & satisfaction
Business impact
Key skills:
Critical thinking
Cognitive empathy
Influential communication
Key traits:
Openness
Deep care
High agency
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If you lead teams that are directly involved in conceiving, building & launching products (i.e. product mgmt, engineering, design, user research, data science, product ops, product mktg, ...), this thread is for you.
Top 5 must-read books for product leaders:
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A company’s true culture is defined more by the bad behaviors it tolerates than the cultural values it appreciates.
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“My team has a prioritization problem. Help!“
Product prioritization, a thread:
(1/30)
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A thread of resources for aspiring & new Product Managers:
(should also be useful for Eng, Design, Data Science, Mktg, Ops folks who want to get better at PM work or want to build more empathy for your PM friends ☺️)
(oh, and pls also share *your* favorite resources below)
👇🏾
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If you work in a company with many 100s or 1000s of employees, the best networking strategy actually lies in plain sight within your company.
Here’s how it works:
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Tactics to improve your product:
1. Talk to customers
2. Use the product
3. Understand competition
4. Browse support tickets
5. Shadow a sales call
6. Specify adoption metrics
7. Write a user story
8. List top user annoyances
9. Read website like a novice
10. Go through the NUX
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3 book recos for PMs, by level
Entry level (APM/PM1/2):
Inspired
Getting Things Done
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Mid-level (SrPM/GPM):
Super Thinking
High Output Management
Understanding Michael Porter
Leadership (Dir/VP):
7 Powers
Are Your Lights On
The Charisma Myth
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A majority of arguments on Twitter are utterly stupid—they don’t change anyone’s mind, they just make people feel hurt, angry, frustrated.
Twitter should have Canned Replies (CRs)—the perfect reply so we can move on with our lives.
Until then, here are 10 or so CRs you can use:
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10 tips for misery in work & life:
-See self as a victim
-Complain constantly
-Resent successful ppl
-Compare as a habit
-Nitpick to feel superior
-Assume bad intent
-Don’t listen to others
-Try to please ppl in power
-Aim to impress everyone
-Crave short term rewards
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One of the most important pieces of feedback you can get from your manager is *how you are perceived* by folks in a position of power within your org. It plays such an important role in how you are reviewed, promoted, compensated and yet a candid discussion of this topic is rare.
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Career goals often include a big title, a large scope, a lot of money, etc. but perhaps a more gratifying career goal for many would be to simply be in a company & a role in which you never experience Sunday night blues.
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A B2B Product Management story:
-New product idea
-PM diligently talks to customers about whether such a product will solve their problems
-All say “yes”
-PM reports findings to exec team, gets staffing for the product
-First version launched
-Hardly any customer adopts it
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What are some examples of tech companies that are doing >$50 million in revenue, with double digit YoY growth, and don't have a hiring freeze?
Public / private doesn't matter, location doesn't matter.
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The desire to feel smart and sound smart is the root of so much product failure.
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Listening, *really* listening, is a rare superpower.
I was a bad listener most of my life.
Then I fixed that a few years ago.
Night & day difference in my leadership ability.
I learned that we can learn to listen well.
A thread on listening (and learning it from movies🎞️)
👇🏾
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The optics-obsessed, high confidence, low competence, charismatic executive is the most dangerous entity in any company.
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Why do smart companies & orgs make stupid mistakes?
A thread:
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How I like to plan my work:
Limit meetings
⇒ Long scheduled work blocks
At end of the work day, plan next day
⇒ Easier to disconnect, be present
Fit the next day's tasks in calendar
⇒ Forces prioritizing
Plan next week on Friday evening
⇒ Go into weekend with a clear mind
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Principle 3:
All your tasks are not created equal. Doing great work doesn't mean that you put in your best effort for every task
Understand the difference between Leverage tasks, Neutral tasks, and Overhead tasks, and aim for a different degree of quality for each type of task:
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Things that are easy to say but very hard in practice as a leader
1) Your job is to repeat, repeat, repeat
2) Disagreement from your team is a feature not a bug
3) Not everyone has the same goals & ambitions as you
4) Take time to find the right hire. Bear the pain until then
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You can simplify complex decisions, if you understand what you are *really* selling.
Apple sells taste
Amazon sells convenience
Peloton sells commitment
Google sells empowerment
Stripe sells deep care
Starbucks sells consistency
Visa sells trust
Shopify sells independence
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Product-Market fit is often viewed as a static concept: either you have it or you don’t.
In my experience, it is better to think of fit as a dynamic state based on your progress towards your vision & know what fit you currently have.
Check out the 4 Types of Product-Market fit:
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Core of B2B strategy:
1) For whom?
2) For what problem?
3) How severe?
4) Why now?
5) Why us?
6) What business value?
7) How to differentiate & distribute?
8) What is not our focus?
9) What major steps to get there?
10) How will we evaluate progress?
Make it direct & cohesive.
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Things that provide great upside, with little to no downside:
Quarterly hackathons
Daily/weekly metrics emails
Top support issues triage
New self-serve customer alerts
Sales win/loss reviews
Bug bash sessions
Pre-mortems
Dogfooding
More product teams should do them consistently
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Failure is the absolute worst way to learn something and sadly so many people spend their entire lives under the illusion that failure is the best way to learn anything.
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Top 10 books for product leaders:
Working Backwards
Amp It Up
The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team
Competing Against Luck
The Mom Test
7 Powers
Understanding Michael Porter
Never Split the Difference
Thinking in Bets
Are Your Lights On?
Bonus:
Alchemy
Principles
High Output Management
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This took me a long time to really understand: some people’s implicit goal in every interaction is to see themselves as higher status relative to the person or persons they are interacting with. That motivates (and explains) their body language, what they say and how they say it.
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There are many books for Product Managers📚
And many book lists too.
Here’s my list. What I hope makes it different:
• Books with very high signal-to-noise ratio
• Books that'll 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 enhance PM skills
• Books that are unlikely to be in typical 📚lists for PMs
👇🏾
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What we need in Product Management:
1)
Less “How will we build this?”
More “How will we differentiate?”
2)
Less “How to enforce accountability?”
More “How to foster ownership?”
3)
Less “What problems can we solve?”
More “What problems are worthwhile?”
👇🏾
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Five concepts with incredibly high ROI:
1. Talent Stacking
2. High Agency
3. Clear Thinking
4. Deep Work
5. Transactional Analysis
Links & References👇🏾
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In your 1st month at a new place:
-start using the product
-read key docs & summaries
-learn people's names
-build rapport with manager
-meet the best PMs there
-ask how to get stuff done
-shadow user calls
-get clarity on your goals
-fix 1-3 things for your team
-listen > speak
Hello
@shreyas
. I would like to shyly ask for advice. Soon I’m starting my new product adventure: new company, new product, new market domain. What do you think I should focus on first? What should my first steps be?
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When presenting to a leader who is
- an Operator: your proposed plan must be very logical & detailed
- a Craftsperson: your plan must first be grounded in superb insights
- a Visionary: your plan must be ambitious & fit into a compelling longterm play
Structure it accordingly
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