This post collects articles and brief notes on articles about building a product. I plan to use this a reference for myself, and I am sharing broadly in case others are looking for a reference. I’ll be updating this as I go and expect it to be a work in progress for some time.
Finding Product Market Fit, John Danner
Use a PMF Report Card to evaluate progress towards product market fit (PMF).
Stages to get through to build a real company and advance out of the seed round
Key Tips: experiment every day, focus on one metric at a time, defer gratification, and don’t monetize too early.
Experiment to PMF, John Danner
A startup is a series of experiments—need to experiment every day
Experiments > User research
Build a long list of experiments that you prioritize on a regular cadence
Have good tracking and measurement in place early
Popularized at Amazon, a PR and FAQ doc is created before building a new product.
Clear pros for the is approach: align on what the customer needs, force assumptions to be explicit, and increase ownership of the work.
Increase funnel conversion with Psych, Darius
Users come to your site with a specific state of mind—understand it and unlock more conversion
Users arrive with a certain amount of positive Psych and interact with your page or app in ways that add to or subtract from this Psych.
Reminds me of a concept discussed by George Saunders in “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain”—readers arrive with a certain amount of energy and a good story builds and pushes that energy forward, from one moment to the next. He described it as one of those hot wheel tracks with a gas station that adds momentum to the car each time it passes through.
Growth Loops are the New Funnels, Reforge
Powerful growth happens as a series of loops—not funnels
Growth loop ≈ compounding interest