Product Habits - GitLab's company culture

How To Be Clear

It was quite an interesting week for the stock market. I read a tweet by Sheel Mohnot about how he would've re-written Robinhood's letter to individual investors. It got me thinking: How many problems would we solve simply by making our writing more brief, clear, and human? This article by Giles Turnbull on clear communication is timely. In short: write shorter sentences with simpler words, communicate with purpose, and constantly think about your audience. The simpler your writing is while still powerfully communicating your main point, the better. 

Thoughts on the Podcast Industry in 2021

Justin Jackson recently shared a tweet thread about the podcast industry in 2021, which is jam-packed with insights. The big takeaways:

• Podcasting's growth curve is "slow and steady."
• The amount of money being invested into podcasting is puzzling.
• VCs are hungry for a "centralized platform" for podcasting.
• A centralized podcasting platform is bad for creators. 
• We should worry about the long-term effects of overcapitalization.

A Bootstrapped SaaS Journey to 10k MRR

At the beginning of 2019, Jon Yongfook left his job to attempt a "12 startups in 12 months" challenge. At the end of the year, he settled on an idea and was at $400 MRR. Fast forward to the end of 2020: Jon surpassed $10k MRR with his bootstrapped SaaS company, Bannerbear. This is a thoughtful recap of his startup journey and inflection points over the past two years. 

How To Improve the Net Promoter Score of a SaaS Product

NPS scores are the holy grail of key performance indicators. Customer success teams use this metric regularly, but it's worth thinking about how NPS might be used by marketing, sales, and product teams. This is one of the best articles I've read about NPS recently, breaking down how different teams at a company can use it effectively. If you want to more diligently track NPS across your business in 2021, read this first. 

Product Analytics at Startups

It's important to have the right product analytics stack to measure progress and connect work to outcomes, but how and when should a company invest in these tools? Content creation site Kapwing shares how their analytics tools have evolved to better understand their 3 million monthly active users. These tools can get pricey fast, so you'll appreciate this list of what tools to use at multiple company stages—and how to keep your data clean along the way. 

Important Email Marketing Trends for 2021

Email is alive and well—and I think it remains one of the most effective ways to engage with and add value to your audience. If email is part of your marketing strategy, here are some trends to pay attention to this year. I think these two are particularly important: Send thoughtful customer appreciation emails and use visuals and language that are close to reality. 

The New B2B Growth Playbook

A few years ago, Sean Ellis started focusing on how to apply the growth principles he developed at B2C companies for the B2B world. He studied some of the fastest-growing B2B businesses to figure out how they achieve product-market fit, how growth mindset drives the test-and-learn process, and what the keys are to accelerating growth. This is what Sean and Ethan Garr, Host of The Breakout Growth Podcast, learned about rocketship B2B growth. 

Radical Transparency: A Look at GitLab's Company Culture

I've heard many companies talk about radical transparency, but few actually practice it. One company that puts its money where its mouth is: GitLab. They have a 10,000+ page handbook that covers quite literally everything, from company style guides and information architecture to KPIs and management principles. Here's an overview of how the company implements radical transparency, and if you're still curious, you can do a deep dive on GitLab's handbook here. 

• We are doing ____________
• Because we see the problem of ___________
• We know it's a problem because __________
• If we don't fix it, we'll see ________________
• We'll know we've fixed it when we get __________