Lessons from the inventor of Amazon Prime

 Hiten's Pick 

Prioritize the Highest Order Bit

This is one of the most resonant things I've read in a while: "The advice to 'focus on the highest order bit' is easy to say, but the natural implication of putting it into practice, especially in a resource-constrained environment, is that you often have to let other things blow up." One of the most important skills a leader needs to have is the ability to prioritize at a high level. Often, it's the difference between your business sinking or swimming. It means you have to be okay with other things exploding or imploding. Putting the most important thing first often isn't easy, but in the end, it's always worth it. 

 Business 

How Four Women Made Miami More Equitable for Startups

Over the past year, a lively tech hub has emerged in the midst of the pandemic: Miami. I've been curious about how exactly this happened—what is causing so many people in tech to flee to Florida? This is a fascinating look at one of the big reasons—and it involves four women who are on a mission to make the city more equitable for women and people of color. I'm excited to see how the rapid emergence of Miami as a tech hub will lead the way for other cities around the U.S.—and the world. 

Basecamp and the Forces Behind So Many Public Implosions

The Internet reacted swiftly when Basecamp published its new work policies a few weeks ago. It brought a much deeper question to the surface: How do (and should) companies address issues of systemic discrimination and inequity? There are no perfectly neat, one-size-fits-all solutions, but it's clear the answer isn't to try and stifle hard conversations in the workplace. Here are a few thoughts on where organizations and their leaders can go from here

 Product 

Set Your Figma Up for Easy Collaboration With Non-Designers

It's important to get design feedback cross-functionally, but collaboration gets tricky when different teams within a company aren't using the same set of tools. This is a helpful guide about how to use Figma to get design feedback from non-designers with greater ease. Setting things up this way will save you a ton of time and many headaches down the road

What Is Legacy Code—And How Do You Avoid It?

What makes for legacy code is a bit subjective. I think it comes down to code that still works, but no longer optimally. Every company that endures beyond a few years will grapple with legacy code at some point. Here's a list of ways you can fix it—and avoid having more of it to manage down the road

 Marketing & Sales 

The Startup-Scaleup Marketing Playbook

What is the best way to approach marketing as your company scales? In this podcast episode, Freshworks' Chief Growth Officer Arun Pattabhiraman shares some thought-provoking wisdom about scaling marketing efforts at both B2B and B2C companies. If you listen to just one startup podcast this week, let it be this.

How We Acquired 100k Users by Updating Old Content

Web-based video editing tool Kapwing was founded in 2018 with an acquisition strategy centered around SEO. The company has since written hundreds of blog posts, most of which are tutorials for creators using search for guidance on common editing tasks. The Kapwing team recently updated their old content and ultimately acquired 100k users. Here are the experiments they ran, along with a breakdown of what worked and what didn't. 

 Growth 
Yes, You Can Pivot to Product-Led Growth

Pivoting an enterprise SaaS company to product-led growth is no easy task. But many companies have made the change, investing patiently in the pivot with strong commitment from the top. If you lead a SaaS company and get the sense you should pivot to PLG, this is where you should start. The more you connect your PLG efforts to your most important business priorities, the more buy-in you'll get from the rest of the company. 

SaaS Churn Rate: What Does Good Look Like?

Measuring your company's churn rate is straightforward enough, but it can be hard to judge what constitutes a "healthy" churn rate. The first step is to pick the right churn metric. From there, you can use industry, growth stage, and company age benchmarks to get a feel for how your churn rate stacks up. This is a helpful way to measure and analyze churn as your company grows

 Management 
The Hybrid Workplace Probably Won't Last

Right now, it seems most people believe America will have a hybrid workforce going forward, where many will opt to work from home while companies save on real estate and perks. Behavioral scientist Jon Levy disagrees. After spending the past two years researching and writing a book about connection and belonging, his bet is that pretty much everyone will go back to the office eventually. Here's why.

Why Bad CEOs Fear Remote Work

I enjoyed this article about why some CEOs fear remote work. It ultimately stems from a bigger fear of change and resistance to progress. It goes without saying that remote work comes with its fair share of challenges. Still, this past year has presented leaders with a great opportunity to learn how to adapt and better serve their companies. These are some of the questions great CEOs are asking themselves right now. 

 Insight of the Week 
The Man Who Invented Amazon Prime

This was one of my favorite tweet storms this past week, featuring lessons Bing Gordon learned in the process of starting Amazon Prime and serving on the company's board for 15 years. A few of the takeaways that stuck out to me: 
  • When you have a business idea, take action before it dies
  • Pick a company for a great boss
  • Set goals that are under your personal control
Check out the full thread here


Copyright © 2021 Up Advisors, LLC., All rights reserved.
You received this email because you signed up to get emails from Product Habits.

Our mailing address is:
Up Advisors, LLC.
13337 South St. #269
Cerritos, California 90623

Add us to your address book


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp

Older messages

Why I’ve been so quiet

Tuesday, May 11, 2021

As you may know, my startup FYI has been focused on helping people find documents across cloud apps. Turns out it's a dead end. Getting adoption... As you may know, my startup FYI has been focused

The 9 habits of ultra-fast iterations

Monday, May 10, 2021

When building a new product, focus less on perfecting product quality and more on doing things quickly and building out from the core. Hiten's Pick The Upsides to Unshipping What if we valued

Research gives us the problem, not the answer

Monday, May 3, 2021

This is a good reminder about how important it is to shape project scopes sufficiently from the outset. Hiten's Pick How To Break Through the Ceiling in Product-Led Growth This one particular line

Are you taking breaks between meetings?

Monday, April 26, 2021

For decades, calendar software has defaulted to on-the-hour meetings. It's time for a change. Hiten's Pick Building Out Customer Experience at Notion & Dropbox Kate Taylor has spent her

The mindsets that lead to startup failure

Monday, April 19, 2021

These thirteen thoughts will set you up for failure, so it's best to address and shift them now. Hiten's Pick The Untold Story of the SolarWinds Hack Last spring, a Texas-based company called

You Might Also Like

Weekend Reading — Happy "That's a January Problem" week

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Can Christmas season start a little earlier this year Tech Stuff Ramsey Nasser fuck it happened i am in a situation where i do actually need to reverse a linked list Atuin I just learned about Atuin

Daily Coding Problem: Problem #1644 [Easy]

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Daily Coding Problem Good morning! Here's your coding interview problem for today. This problem was asked by IBM. Given an integer, find the next permutation of it in absolute order. For example,

🐧 Whatever Happened to Unix Workstations? — My Incredibly Cheap Alternative to a Soundbar

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Also: Here's Why More Games Need Expanded Difficulty Settings How-To Geek Logo December 21, 2024 Did You Know Lake Wendouree, an artificially created and maintained shallow urban lake in Australia,

Supercharge Your Knowledge Capture Workflow with the Obsidian Web Clipper

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Stop juggling multiple tools and supercharge your knowledge capture workflow with Obsidian's powerful Web Clipper browser extension Sébastien Dubois DeveloPassion's Newsletter Supercharge Your

Charted | The World's Most Valuable Automakers 🚙

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Tesla shares reached a record high, setting a new valuation milestone. This graphic highlights the world's most valuable automakers by market cap. View Online | Subscribe | Download Our App

Next Holiday Season, Ignore Everyone Except One Customer

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Top Tech Content sent at Noon! Boost Your Article on HackerNoon for $159.99! Read this email in your browser How are you, @newsletterest1? 🪐 What's happening in tech today, December 21, 2024? The

🐍 New Python tutorials on Real Python

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Hey there, There's always something going on over at Real Python as far as Python tutorials go. Here's what you may have missed this past week: 🎓 Master Python's Core Principles (New Live

Post from Syncfusion Blogs on 12/21/2024

Saturday, December 21, 2024

New blogs from Syncfusion ASP.NET MVC Suite Update: Aligning with .NET Changes By Rajendran R Discover key updates in our ASP.NET MVC suite, aligning with Microsoft's latest .NET changes for

LockBit Ransomware Developer Charged for Billions in Global Damages

Saturday, December 21, 2024

THN Daily Updates Newsletter cover The Data Science Handbook, 2nd Edition ($60.00 Value) FREE for a Limited Time Practical, accessible guide to becoming a data scientist, updated to include the latest

Re: My VPN recommendation

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Do you know when to use a VPN and what it does to protect your data? Any time you are connected to the internet, your information is at risk of being tracked or hacked. A VPN helps keep your surfing