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#productwashing seems apt as the term for this. Let’s evolve the definition of PMs, now that there is low-code to no-code tools that they can use to augment their impact on the product. Even so, it’s going to be hard to overcome “arbitrary decisions from the top”, especially in data poor startups with low volume of customers. What analytics, what A/B testing, what quantitative surveys? Sometimes there’s only one or two design partners, and feedback during sales and implementation cycles in the Enterprise SaaS world. You take what you can get but there’s still plenty of “arbitrary” decisions that must be made, and it’s the prerogative of leaders to make those decisions when there’s no more research that can really help. When a startup transitions from data poor to data rich, PMs can start to shine and run farther with experiments. When that happens, leaders must adjust from shooting from the hip when the company was data poor, to making more rigorous decisions, and it’s through having more data to back up your decisions as a PM that you have a chance to convince leaders over time to trust you to do your job, without as much override. AI can make experiments cheaper and faster to run, but it can’t alone turn a company used to #productwashing into one that has a legit #productmanagement function. The data and volume has to be there, and the decision making culture has to shift from the top down.

In the realm of product management, the quest is perpetual: how can we make impactful strides while navigating the terrain of uncertainty? This journey often leads us to a crossroads, where big bets must be made, balanced delicately with the need for incremental progress. Imagine yourself in the bustling offices of TripAdvisor circa 2015. The digital travel giant, severed from its parent company Expedia, stands at a pivotal juncture. With over 300 million users per month, the mobile era is in full swing, reshaping user expectations and industry landscapes. The air buzzes with excitement as the team faces a big decision. 1️⃣ Path 1: Stick with what they know—helping people book hotels and rentals. Pros: - Boutique & small hotels having TripAdvisor as their major supplier : - Best Review platform for hotels Cons: - Google moving into Hotel Search - Hotel booking is highly competitive 2️⃣ Path 2: Becoming the ultimate travel companion for adventurers everywhere, i.e. Amazon of travel approach : Experiences + Hotel resources Insights to consider: - Higher during-the-trip usage of the product rather than pre-trip - No historical evidence of non-hotel traffic monetization - Poor unit economics v/s hotels TripAdvisor - Used Path 2 i.e. One stop shop - User research showed throughout the trip planning journey after using 25+ websites 70% of users ended up creating their itineraries on Tripadvisor Envisioning a holistic travel ecosystem, TripAdvisor outlined a roadmap: 1. Collaborative Planning: Invite users to co-create and refine trip itineraries. 2. Personalized Recommendations: Tailor suggestions based on users' saved preferences. 3. Email Integration: Seamlessly sync trip plans with users' email accounts. 4. Enhanced "Save to Trip" Feature: Elevate engagement with a revamped saving mechanism. 5. Offline Access: Cater to travelers with limited mobile data. 6. In-Destination Experience: Provide real-time guidance during trips. 7. Post-Trip Experience: Facilitate review writing and memory sharing. 8. Itinerary Creation: Enable comprehensive planning with date and time specifics. In the face of myriad possibilities, TripAdvisor turned to the North Star of product management: user research. They crafted an Impact vs. Urgency matrix, pinpointing the "Enhanced Save to Trip" feature as the linchpin. Why? -Because it unlocked a wealth of user data while setting the stage for subsequent enhancements. After finalizing their MVP feature, it was time to define the success criteria i.e. OKR: Goals = Objectives (achievable aspirations) + Key Results (quantifiable metrics) Key Elements: ○ Increase Awareness & usage of saves ○ User stickiness to Tripadvisor ○ Retention hook relationship Objectives : - Create a retention-driving hook within the trip creation journey by utilizing the "Save to Trip" feature Key Results: - # of users Saving an item - # of Saves - 1,3 & 7 D Retention Rate #productmanagement #artandproductmusings

Do you still need product managers in your company? 🤔 😎 Recently, Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, made a decision of removing product managers from the company. I’m telling you the basic principles of Airbnb’s new approach and what prompted the top manager to make those radical changes. How Successful Companies Turn into Bureaucracies!? When Brian said that he was removing the RM function, 5,000 designers in the hall smiled. They are very disappointed with the current process of creating products in the company, because they have turned into design administrators. The teams isolated themselves, knocked out resources and built their own marketing, which led to another problem - bureaucracy. As a result, 10 marketing actions were done, but users did not hear anything, thousands of engineers were doing something, and users could not name what you have done in the product recently. Marketing and engineers didn't talk to each other, and even hated each other. The essence of Airbnb's new approach The basic idea is that you can't build a product if you don't know how to talk about the product. You can't be an expert in a product if you're not an expert in your market. Now Airbnb company has a two-year product roadmap, which is reviewed every 6 months, and the whole company is working on one goal. Regular review of projects made it possible to identify bottlenecks and maintain the pace without micromanagement. A team of product marketing managers is working on communications so that everyone understands the product and its unique advantages. Instead of relying on performance marketing, we believe in product training and storytelling, says Brian. This helps to create a complete product and ensure that the release is accepted by users. And it helps teams work seamlessly. #plg #airbnb #productmanagement #productmanager #Productapproach

At Airbnb, a company that "got the rid of product managers", today work 200 PMs! What do they do? 🤔 Think of it, especially after their CEO publicly declared that he has: - Pulled product decisions back in. - Personally decided every single feature on the roadmap. - Made data and experiments secondary to (his) intuition. This is not a debate about whether you should blend product with marketing, and whatever other nonsense came out of that discussion. It's really about answering a simple questiion: what do they do? The answer is that the problem is not Airbnb. The majority of companies out there are not doing real product management, they are only #productwashing. Which also means that too many PMs unfortunately sit in companies where they cannot make any actual product decisions. Consider how much product work gets wasted — customer interviews, experiments, analytics— all dismissed because someone at the top chooses to make arbitrary decisions. Thousands of PMs reading this are all too familiar with the deep frustration productwashing brings, and that’s one of the main drivers for them to leave. Read the full article, "Is your company #productwashing?" in my newsletter at news.paolo.pm --- Like this post? Share it around and subscribe for more! 👆

Paolo Lacche I couldn’t agree more with your insights on #ProductWashing—it’s a term I’m lovin 😊. It’s a critical issue I’ve encountered throughout my career, where PMs hold the title but lack the autonomy to drive real change. But there’s another layer that often gets missed—balancing three key elements: Empowerment, Decision-Making, and Problem Understanding. Think of it as a “golden triangle” of product management: 1️⃣ Empowerment: PMs need the authority and autonomy to make decisions. When this is missing, we get #ProductWashing - where PMs are PMs in name only, unable to influence outcomes. Customer research, experiments, and insights get overlooked as decisions come from the top down. 2️⃣ Decision-Making: Authority alone isn't enough; PMs need to make the *right* decisions. This is where #DecisionWashing comes in—decisions made without a foundation in data, analysis, or customer feedback. Even empowered PMs can become biased or overly reliant on intuition without a rigorous approach. 3️⃣ Problem Understanding: A deep grasp of customer pain points is essential. Without it, PMs risk #SolutionWashing—jumping to solutions without fully understanding the problem. A solution without a well-defined problem can be as risky as having no solution at all. When companies lean too heavily on any side of this triangle, it compromises the others. Overemphasis on empowerment leads to #ProductWashing, prioritizing decisions without data causes #DecisionWashing, and rushing into solutions without problem validation results in #SolutionWashing. Balancing these three elements - empowering PMs, ensuring data-driven decisions, and keeping a problem-first mindset—lays the foundation for real product success. ####### PS: The balance may vary by the company’s stage: 🔹 Early-stage startups often struggle with #SolutionWashing as they rush to build MVPs without validating the problem. PMs here should champion understanding core user needs before scaling. 🔹 Growing startups may face #DecisionWashing as they gather more data but struggle to use it effectively. The focus should be on integrating customer insights without losing speed. 🔹 Established startups risk #ProductWashing, where PMs have the title but lack autonomy due to rigid structures. Empowerment here means creating space for PMs to innovate within frameworks. 🔹 Bootstrapped companies often rely heavily on intuition over data, making them prone to #DecisionWashing. A lean but effective approach to user research and rapid feedback loops is crucial. 🔹 Venture-funded companies may rush to scale solutions to meet investor demands, risking #SolutionWashing by prioritizing growth over understanding user problems. They need to balance rapid delivery with thorough validation for long-term success. What do you think Paolo Lacche 😅?

The past few days have had me self-reflecting on my experience in Product so far, how little I knew, at first, and how I love the everyday chaos it brings. I wanted to pen down the lessons I've learnt for anyone who is in a early phase of their Product Management career. 🏕 1. Prioritisation is key 🏆 Not everyday is about strategy and brainstorming. More often than not, you’ll find yourself spending time firefighting, making SoPs for internal stakeholders, documenting your findings and extracting data. Every hour you spend on a problem comes at an opportunity cost of solving another problem; so choose wisely, your time is precious. 2. Keep Big Numbers for All-Hands — focus on the smaller cohorts 🏁 We have a habit of looking at the big picture, our DAU/MAU, and overall conversion funnels; and while that is good for periodic reviews, it shouldn’t be our go-to deck. While working at Uber, Andrew Chen (author of The Cold Start Problem), stresses upon hyperlocal networks, that could steer decisions on where interventions were needed: marketing budgets, incentive structures, product enhancements or core operations. These networks can be defined as cities, segments or a mix. Whatever problem you’re solving, always know which cohort it is being solved for. 3. Don’t be too rigidly data-driven 💡 Perhaps great product stories are those that stem from the COVID-19 era i.e. Airbnb's existential crisis. However, the pandemic was a testament to Airbnb's power of adaptability. Its pivot to online experiences highlighted the necessity of not being rigid. My point is, a PM is navigating through ambiguity, not strategy. There are situations that don’t have any answers, let alone the right answers. If these situations demand urgent decisions, focus on the core of your business, what the customers truly want and how can be delivered timely. 4. It’s ok if your feature doesn’t work! Don't be too risk averse 🐣 With every feature you build, there are four risks involved: Value risk, Usability risk, Viability risk, Feasibility risk As a PM, two of these risks should be catered to at the very core of problem solving — value and viability. Value risk is the most important and often the most overlooked, because we assume our solution will solve the problem without asking whether it actually generates the value users want. Second is the viability risk; for you may create value generating solutions, but they may not yield long-term benefit to the business model. 5. Adopt a full-stack perspective 👣 One philosophy I hold dear is always asking why. As a PM, this enables you to learn deeply about the business model, system's current limitations, how it impacts your customers and internal teams to run their daily processes. Moreover, it empowers you to question your assumptions, forcing you to think deeper and devise in-depth answers. Just be mindful of knowing when to stop questioning and start building! Detailed article: #product #productmanagement

Ryan Johnson from Expedia just posted for a Senior Product Manager opening on their team. I am going to start posting less product manager roles on LinkedIn and start moving these posts over to Skool and this is because I am getting blown up by hiring managers telling me to stop posting jobs they are posting on LinkedIn. This didn’t make any sense to me until I started speaking with more hiring managers about how their inbox is blown up with just horrible messages. My mission is to help as many aspiring and experience product managers land their next product manager role, but y’all have to help me out by sending better messages. Sending a generic, “I am interested” or “I applied” or “did you get my application” offers no value and it won’t help you land your next product manager job. If anything it’s only leaving a negative or at best forgettable impression to somebody who just might be your future boss. So do yourself a favor and steal my message templates in Skool, follow up, and have real conversations with hiring managers. The biggest mistakes product managers are making beyond sending out bad messages is not following up. There is reason why we have included 8 follow up slots on the Airtable and that because you NEED to follow up with your applications. You already spent the time applying so you might as well maximize your list until you get a definitive rejection, because you are only one application and one interview away from landing your next product manager role. PS Stop overlooking the smaller companies and apply to them. Seriously! I usually get 3,000 to 6,000+ impressions when I post a product manager job for a bigger company; but I only get 900 impressions when I post for roles at companies nobody has heard of. There is nothing wrong with those companies and I challenge you to interview with them. God knows you need the practice. If you want other people to give you a shot, then you need to give companies a shot too. You want hiring teams to start treating you like a like human instead of a number, then stop applying and interview for product managers like they are another number. Your vibe attracts your tribe. #ProductManagement  #WhatBadEconomy #GameHasBeenElevated #EverybodyIsOutOnTheTake

When I say I am a Product Manager now, a lot of people have asked me questions like- How did you transition as a Product Manager? What all you did and how you did it? I always wonder that may be the foundation was already built, it probably just needed some twirls and twists to get there. I always wanted to write about a few qualities and characteristic traits I had acquired as a hotelier which genuinely turned out to be very helpful during this transition. From Hospitality to SaaS Product Management: My Journey of Transformation Here are a few key skills that made this transition smoother: 🛎️ Customer-Centric Mindset: As a hotelier, I lived and breathed customer service. Understanding and exceeding customer expectations were at the core of everything we did. Today, as a product manager, that same customer-first approach is critical in building products that genuinely solve problems and enhance user experiences. 👥 Stakeholder Management: In hospitality, I learned how to navigate diverse needs, from guests to staff to vendors. Managing these relationships with care has helped me successfully collaborate with engineers, designers, and cross-functional teams in the SaaS world. ⏳ Operational Efficiency: Running smooth hotel operations meant thinking on my feet, problem-solving quickly, and optimizing processes. These skills have translated directly into managing product roadmaps, prioritizing backlogs, and delivering on deadlines in a fast-paced tech environment. 📊 Attention to Detail: Whether it was handling guest preferences or managing day-to-day operations, paying close attention to the smallest details was essential. As a product manager, this focus on details allows me to anticipate user needs, track metrics, and ensure the highest product quality. 🔄 Adaptability: The hospitality industry taught me to embrace unpredictability and adapt swiftly. This resilience has been crucial in navigating the ever-changing landscape of tech, where product requirements shift, and market demands evolve rapidly. 🎨 Innovation and Aesthetics: In hospitality, creating memorable experiences often came down to unique, thoughtful touches that elevated the guest’s experience. That understanding of design, aesthetics, and innovation has helped me bring the same level of creativity to product development—whether it's crafting intuitive interfaces or introducing new features that delight users. Today, after 3.5 years in product management, I’ve found that while industries may change, core skills like empathy, communication, and adaptability remain invaluable. I’m grateful for the journey, to the people and all the opportunities they have given me so far to evolve.

🚀New Opportunities at One.Funding 🚀 One of the most rewarding aspects of my role is building a team of exceptional individuals who drive our company forward. However, this journey is not without its challenges. From the disappointment of last-minute candidate cancellations to the sense of achievement you get from securing outstanding talent for key positions like our Head of Operations and Head of One.asset. Looking forward to announcing these in the coming weeks! 👀 Recruitment can be hard work, but it's also a chance to find people who align with our core values and vision who will help us take our business forward. We're currently on the lookout for a Customer Experience Manager who shares our commitment to excellence and innovation. This role is crucial for us as we continue to grow and enhance our customer experiences. I'd love to hear from my LinkedIn network: What are your best strategies for finding and securing top talent? How do you overcome the hurdles of last-minute cancellations? ☝ What are your best strategies for finding and securing top talent? ✌ How do you keep a candidate engaged during their notice period to? Your insights and advice would be invaluable as we continue our growth plan. #weareOne #Leadership #Recruitment #TeamBuilding #CustomerExperience #Hiring #JoinOurTeam #Innovation #CompanyCulture #LeadershipChallenges Jonathan Grier Matthew Bdzola CeMAP