Product Habits - What COVID changed about hiring

A Project of One's Own

I enjoyed Paul Graham's latest essay about the importance of having projects of one's own. In many ways, it's a call to reinvigorate how we think about doing our work. In his words, "Working on a project of your own is as different from ordinary work as skating is from walking. It's more fun, but also much more productive." Not all work will feel like skating, but this is a good reminder to "skate" whenever possible. 

The First 18 Months of a Startup

It's worthwhile for any startup founder to make note of lessons learned along the way, as down the road, they often prove to be helpful to others and good reminders for oneself. This is a thought-provoking list of lessons one entrepreneur learned during the first 18 months of building his startup. My favorites: Be married to the problem (not the technology), and de-risk by talking to users.

What COVID Changed About How Facebook Hires

Facebook's Head of Global Recruiting Miranda Kalinowski and her team hired over 10,000 product and engineering folks in 2020 alone. Even though the company was gratefully able to keep hiring during the pandemic, it wasn't business as usual. Here are some of the things that changed:

• Remote work required looking for new employee strengths
• Phone calls and text messages worked better than email and LinkedIn messages for recruiting (blame email fatigue!)
• The talent pool broadened as location became less of a consideration

Lessons Learned From Two Years at Microsoft

This is a great retrospective of lessons learned after two years as a software engineer at Microsoft. Beyond engineering, every good independent contributor and manager would benefit from integrating these lessons into their work. The final lesson on this list is something I try to practice every day: Always assume the best intentions of others. By following this advice alone, you'd be amazing at how differently you approach people and problems. 

Why So Many Products Are Poorly Designed

We often accept bad design as part of our daily reality. After all, how many times have you felt overwhelmed by your inbox, struggled to figure out the sound on a Zoom call, or pressed the wrong button accidentally on an order page? We blame ourselves, but it's usually the fault of the technology itself. If you want to build a great company, make sure you're thinking seriously about every aspect of its design. 

Signaling as a Service

This is a crazy statistic, but I buy it: More than 90 percent of human behavior can be explained by signaling. In other words, most of what we do can be traced back to a motive to attain or maintain a certain social status. This deeply impacts how we create, sell, and scale software—and really, all—products. Understanding signaling as a service will unlock how you think about building your business. 

The Ultimate Email Marketing Checklist

Despite countless new channels for customer engagement and acquisition, email marketing continues to reign supreme. If you're going to put energy into sending out business emails, it's worth investing time to make sure they are optimized. Check out this list of 30 things you can do to make sure your emails stand out—from avoiding spam filters and choosing the right frequency, to mastering subject lines and send times. 

How Can Struggling Startups Grow Early Revenue?

Calendly's Head of Product Marketing Jeff Hardison recently did an AMA where he covered a wide breadth of topics. He shares some of the growth experiments and channels that have worked surprisingly well, and how he thinks about growing early revenue at a startup. I loved his take on what the biggest challenge is at a startup: overthinking things. Check out Jeff's full AMA here.