Product Habits - Is your product good enough?

Saying the Difficult Things

It's easy to say you're open to feedback and hard conversations. It's another thing to actually receive it well. Harder still? The ability to give difficult feedback when it matters most. When I read this, it reminded me that while saying the difficult things is never easy, it's what builds trust and depth in relationships—personal or professional. The more comfortable we are with the sharp, challenging edges of communication, the less resentment builds up toward others and the more room there is for true connection.

How To Build a Startup Sales Team

This is a short and sweet read from Hubspot's Co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah about the best practices he's observed in his career for building a startup sales team. A few of the ones I found particularly resonant: 

• Make sure your pricing is in line with your sales structure
• ALWAYS connect incentives to ultimate customer success and happiness
• Resist the temptation to create complicated compensation plans

Chip Wilson on Building Lululemon

When I meet people who are building a startup, I often tell them to seek advice from entrepreneurs in other industries. Many of the best lessons about starting a business from scratch still apply. I was reminded of this recently when I listened to Lululemon Founder Chip Wilson on Tim Ferriss's podcast. The story of how he went from a pipeline worker to an apparel tycoon will blow you away. Listen to the full episode here.

Becoming a Great Product Manager

Asana's Head of Product Management Jackie Bavaro recently wrote a book called Cracking the PM Career. If you want a quick primer, her interview with Nir Eyal is a good starting point. She shares her thoughts on living out of her calendar to stay productive, reimagining career ladders, and how to actually be a strategic thinker. Check out the full conversation here.

Is Your Product Good Enough To Motivate People To Switch?

If you read any tweet thread this week, let it be this one. Julie Zhuo reminds us that it's not enough to have a product that is better than the competition. It has to be better enough that people will feel motivated to change their behavior. In her words, "Just because you can build a service better than anything else out there doesn't guarantee you will have a hit." I couldn't have said it better myself. 

10 Landing Page Copywriting Tips To Get More Conversions

Jeremy Moser has done copywriting for hundreds of landing pages and home pages. This is a great tweet thread of 10 things he's seen lead to more conversions. A few of my favorites: Write a "how it works" section and replace buzzwords (seriously). In my experience, the simpler and less gimmicky the writing sounds, the more people will respond favorably to it. 

Four Kinds of Keyword Research

Unsurprisingly, Google is responsible for the overwhelming majority of referral traffic on the web. But there are traffic opportunities beyond Google and it's helpful to understand what they are and how to build a multi-platform keyword strategy if you want to get out of an SEO rut. These are the four kinds you should consider in the future. I'm bullish on keyword research for content creation.  

3 Unusual Drivers of Early-Stage Growth

A lot of startup founders give lip service to the importance of hiring well, but early-stage hiring is often haphazard and rushed. Early on, every hire contributes in a meaningful way to the culture of the organization—and either accelerates or decelerates its growth. With that in mind, I appreciate these three overlooked drivers of early-stage growth.