Product Habits - 39 moves to survive in a downturn

39 Moves To Survive in a Downturn

In 2008, Pete Flint was running Trulia. The company faced a recession and a total meltdown in its core market. He's learned a lot about how to manage during downturns and crises. I thought this was a great list of decisions his teams made over the years that gave them a fighting chance and the opportunity to pull ahead of their competition. This one is worth bookmarking. 

Marc Andreessen's Startup Advice

Fifteen years ago, Marc Andreessen gave some interesting advice about why it's problematic to build startups based on trends. His take is that trends are apparent, and there is no startup opportunity in the obvious. Startup success comes down to this simple truth: If your product is compelling to the market, it'll succeed. If it's not, it'll fail. The advice holds true even years later. 

The Power of Amazon's Written Narratives

For the first ten years of Amazon's life, the company had a traditional PowerPoint-driven meeting culture. But Jeff Bezos became increasingly frustrated with the lack of productivity he felt from meetings. In 2004, he sent an email to his entire executive team communicating a change in the structure of meetings—and it's still the company's method today. Here's the story behind how it transformed the organization. 

How To Make Your Product Onboarding Better

Great onboarding can be a superpower for your app. One of the most surprising things Josh Elman learned about building products like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Robinhood is that longer flows are better than shorter flows. He also found that the only accurate measure of onboarding success is when a customer habitually uses your product. Here's his favorite exercise for improving customer onboarding. 

How Netflix Created a Customer Obsession

Netflix's CEO Reed Hastings once said he hoped his legacy would be "consumer science." He's guided the company to think about what delights customers through the scientific process. What resonates most with me about this article is knowing the difference between customer-focused and customer-obsessed. The latter will get you fundamentally different results. 

How Non-Designers Can Build Great-Looking Websites

One of the challenges developers run into is building websites that don't look great. The good news is that you don't have to become a seasoned designer. It helps to learn and follow a few simple design tips to help you bridge the gap and build sites you're proud of. This guide covers a bunch of great tools, techniques, and resources you can use. 

Making Twitter More Purposeful

I love Twitter. It is by far my favorite social media platform. But I've met countless people over the years who don't grasp the purpose of the platform. Here's the good news: There is a way to think about and set up Twitter to make it more valuable and meaningful for you. Take it from someone who doesn't love social media. 

Stripe's Model of Product-Led, Developer-Centric Growth

Stripe is the definition of a product-led, developer-centric company. It was surprisingly far along before they invested in building out marketing and sales teams. One of the company's significant accomplishments has been finding success with enterprise businesses and startups simultaneously. Here's an interesting read about Stripe's particular style of being product-led and developer-centric.