Product Habits - What COVID changed about hiring

 Hiten's Pick 

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

 Business 

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
 Product 

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. 

 Marketing & Sales 

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. 

 Growth 
Growth Marketing Amid the Pandemic

Tyler Elliston, Founder of growth marketing firm Right Side Up, shares some fascinating insights into how growth marketing has changed over the past 18 months. But I was most struck by him saying that his firm regularly tells companies they shouldn't focus on growth marketing until they've found product-market fit. For any founders struggling with how to balance marketing and product building early on, make sure you read this

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

 Management 
The 25 Micro-Habits of High-Impact Managers

Here are two challenging things about being a manager: 

  • If you're coming into it from an independent contributor role, there's a huge learning curve
  • What makes you successful as a manager on one team might be totally different on another
Management is nuanced and tricky, but there are general guidelines that high-impact managers seem to abide by. This is a fantastic list of some of those shared micro-habits. Adopting any of these is sure to make you a more effective manager—regardless of company or function. 
How Much Startup Founders Should Pay Themselves

This question seems to come up constantly when I talk to startup founders: How much should they pay themselves? The answer is complex and it largely depends on funding and cash flow. This article doesn't give you clear-cut answers, but it will help you think through important questions and considerations before paying yourself an arbitrary salary. 

 Insight of the Week 
Five Useful Questions

Every now and then, I read one of Seth Godin's posts and I am blown away by the power-packed simplicity. In a recent post, he wrote about five questions you should answer before starting any project—whether at your formal job or as part of a side hustle or personal endeavor. You can find them here.


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Older messages

Marie’s AMA was 🔥

Thursday, June 17, 2021

The most upvoted question was from Walter Chen, a founder of Sacra... The most upvoted question was from Walter Chen, a founder of Sacra: “one problem i encounter is getting really excited about an

How people discover new products

Monday, June 14, 2021

Beyond obvious ways to grow, like social media ads and SEO, here's what you should be doing to build product awareness. Hiten's Pick Lessons Learned Working With Zuckerberg for 13 Years Dan

Ask my co-founder anything

Wednesday, June 9, 2021

Marie is doing an AMA on Product Hunt and will be answering your questions tomorrow... Marie is doing an AMA on Product Hunt and will be answering your questions tomorrow. Ask Marie anything. Seriously

Nira is live

Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Because you've been on the journey with us, I wanted to share all the details about my new product with you first... Our new website is live! FYI is now Nira. Because you've been on the journey

This one email explains Apple

Monday, June 7, 2021

We can learn a lot from this 2007 email exchange between Steve Jobs and Apple's former SVP of Software Engineering Bertrand Serlet. Hiten's Pick This One Email Explains Apple An October 2007

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