Avoid the RICE prioritization

RICE can be easily manipulated I dislike RICE. (Not the edible one which I enjoy in almost all cuisines.) I am sure you have heard about this prioritization method and even applied it. Today, I will make the case why you should not use it and what is the alternative. What is RICE? RICE is […]

Lessons Building Products with Limited Resources

How to ensure success in a resource constrained environments I’ve always felt like a bit of an underdog as a product manager.   Based in the Bay Area, I’m surrounded by folks working at tech giants like Google, Amazon, Meta, and the like. For a long time, I thought that to truly experience product management, […]

Early Stage B2B Sales for Tech Founders

Why is sales so hard for tech founders and how to overcome If you are a founder selling to B2B, then this is for you. In the early stages of your startup, the founders are responsible finding and closing customers. But sales is hard especially if you are a techie founder. I meet many startup […]

Handling the DIY objection for B2B startups

Your biggest competition is a customer building the solution in house For B2B Saas products, frequently the alternative is not a competitor of yours but Engineering or IT teams building in house. The DIY alternative. Many applications that are not core to the company will of course be outsourced e.g. CRM, ERP, calendar scheduling, eSignature. […]

How to incorporate AI in your product roadmap

Incorporate AI in your product, but not for the sake of it.    It’s a legit question and every company in the world is scrambling to get AI into their product. If your product is AI first e.g. video generators or image classifications, then you are looking out for the market/segment who will find the […]

15 learnings from 15 years of product management

15 years ago my life changed. I joined a startup as Employee #2 in August 2009. Fresh off an MBA and a course from the great Steve Blank, I was super eager to try my hand at a startup. I signed up for 3 months and ended up staying for 6 years. This startup experience […]

Why Emotional and Social Jobs are the Secret Weapons of Product Success

Are emotional and social jobs important to consider? Are you familiar with the Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework? It’s a powerful tool that goes beyond simply understanding what features users want, but rather why they need them. The JTBD framework breaks down user needs into three distinct categories: functional, emotional, and social. While the functional job might […]

Building new products in existing companies by Tanguy Crusson

Existing companies have an advantage. They have customers. So building new products should be easy. Wrong. Even big companies can falter. Your segments, the competition the industry dynamics can all be different. As someone who has built 0-1 products both in startups and in mature companies, I have had my share of success and non-success. […]

Don’t obsess on the TAM, yet

Starting your startup in a niche will improve the odds of success One of the frequent comments I hear from startups is they want to go for a big TAM.   This is what I often hear. ”We want to go after a big TAM.” ”Our investors want to see a big TAM.” “Our solution […]

-1 to 1 : Starting up your startup

What you need to do once you have an idea You have this awesome idea about a product and decide to start a company. Where do you start? What are the very first steps?  Frequently, startups will jump right into product building and hope that it will sell. We tend to bias our own experiences. […]