Articles & podcasts
Teaching a Product Strategy Workshop in Dublin, Ireland in early March of 2020. I flew home to SF on March 12th due to COVID19.
My top articles on Medium
“Branding for Builders”: An article about positioning and branding. (10K claps, 50K reads.)
“How to Define Your Product Strategy”: A 12-part, step-by-step series. (17K reads, NPS in mid-80’s.)
“How to Run a Quarterly Product Strategy Meeting”: This describes a “Board Meeting for Product.” (5K claps.)
“What We Can Learn From Netflix’s Failed Community Strategy”: Chronicles my many mistakes! (4K claps)
“Why Won’t Netflix Party?” Amazon, Disney, and Hulu all enable a Party mode? Why Netflix doesn’t.
“How to Balance Customer Delight and Profits.” Two modern-day Netflix cases.
Other essays
Click here for the “Frame Game” E-book (a compilation of my product strategy essays)
First Round Capital Article on "Branding for Builders" (18K shares)
"Leaders Lead" on Medium
“How to Give a Great Product Talk” for “Mind the Product”
"Netflix's Customer Obsession" on Medium
"Bad Presentations Gone Good" on Medium
podcasts
In June 2022, Melissa Perri, Barry O’Reilly, and I did another version of our every six months “Personal Board of Directors” meeting. You can watch it here.
My Podcast with Barry O’Reilly on “Delighting Customers in Hard to copy, margin-enhancing ways.” Listen to it here.
I recorded the podcast “The Science of Change” with Kristen Berman and Irrational Labs. We have a conversation about surprising AB test results at Netflix, then Kristen digs deeper into the behavioral science behind the results.
Melissa Perri, Barry O’Reilly, and I recorded one of our “Personal Board of Director” meetings. Watch it here. You can also listen to the podcast here.
Here’s a podcast with Notion in the UK focused on strategy and culture.
I recorded a new podcast with “The Science of Change” with Kristen Berman and Irrational Labs. We have a conversation about surprising AB test results at Netflix, then Kristen digs deeper into the behavioral science behind the results.
Here’s a podcast with Gtmhub where I discuss the blend of product strategy, consumer science, and culture required to build a world-class company.
Here’s a new video interview with the “Business of Business”— about leadership, what CEOs look for in their product leaders, and what happened with Qwikster and the quarter that Netflix dropped from a market cap of $40B to $10B.
Here’s a new podcast where I am the guest of Melissa Perri: “Product Thinking.”
A new podcast with Jason Knight, “One Knight in Product.” First time I’ve ever talked about growth through acquisition and what Blockbuster could have done to survive in the face of Netflix’s success.
A new podcast with “Mind the Product”: “Building Hard to Copy Advantage,” a podcast with Mind The Product.
Click here to listen to a new podcast I recorded with “Driven by Design” and Kirsten Mann.
Click here to hear Eric Boduch of Pendo interview me for “Product Love.”
Click here to listen to Suzanne Abate of “100 PMs” interview me about “Career Hacking.”
Click here to watch a new YouTube video podcast. Mitch Seguin, CPO of TribalScale interviews me.
Click here to listen to a new “Unlearn” podcast by the host, Barry O’Reilly.
Click here to listen to a “Customer Obsession” podcast from ProductSchool (audio from my talk).
Click here to listen to my podcast for Notion VC’s “Pain of Scale” series.
Click here to listen to my new podcast, based on my 12-part “How To Define Your Product Strategy” series.
Click here to listen to a new podcast I recorded with “Driven by Design” and Kirsten Mann
Other interviews and articles
Notion created a framework that makes it easy for you to apply my positioning and branding frameworks. It also includes a little extra reading. Click here for more.
My ‘How to Define Your Product Strategy Series” has been translated into Portuguese. Click here.
Barry O’Reilly and I live-streamed a recent career conversation. Watch it here.
I’m interviewed in this podcast and do a fun “Netflix Party” case: GrowthTLDR
Click here to watch my interview with GSoft in Montreal.
Here’s an article and interview from my last visit to GSoft in Montreal.
Download the new “Product School”, e-book, “Ship It” here.
Click here to watch my interview for Optimizely’s “Digital Change Agents”’ series.
Click here to read Amplify’s “North Star Playbook.” Lots of juicy quotes and cases from me.
I have worked with “Connected” to publish my first e-book, “The Frame Game.” It includes all my step-by-step product strategy exercises to enable you to define your product strategy. It’s free.
Speakers, aspiring speakers, and meetup/conference organizers: I published a video, “How to Give a Rockstar Product Talk.”
"Product Decoded" podcasts, co-hosted by Dan Olsen & Ha Nguyen
Ep: 1 — Deb Liu, VP of Marketplace at Facebook
Ep. 2 — Chris Abad, VP of Product & Design at UserTesting
Ep. 3 — Todd Yellin, VP Product at Netflix
Ep. 4 — Aaron Levie, Founder & CEO at Box
Ep. 5 — Michael Sippey, Head of Product at Medium
Ep. 6 — Amanda Richardson, Chief Data & Strategy Officer at HotelTonight
Speaker advice: Videos and essays
Here is a video called, “How to Give a Rockstar Product Preso” that I created to help speakers design and execute new talks.
Here are essays I wrote to help speakers give new talks:
Click here for the PDF of the “Rockstar Product Presos” presentation, above.
Click here for a Medium article I wrote about the creation of the “Netflix’s Customer Obsession” talk, entitled “Bad Presentation Gone Good.”
Click here to read my “How to Build a Great Product Presentation” article for Mind the Product.
my favorite articles & videos from others
For young startups, lots of great YCombinator advice in one place: YC's Essential Startup Advice
This is a helpful article describing the differences between Mission, Vision, and Strategy: WTF is Strategy?
Hamilton Helmer’s book, “The 7 Powers,” details 7 hard-to-copy attributes of an emerging startup. (I think there are 8!)
This article includes most of Jeff Bezos’ best advice in one article: “What I Learned From Jeff Bezos After Reading Every Single Amazon Shareholder Letter.”
The video below has two very helpful segments: enterprise sales for startups in the first half, followed by guidance on forming your startup pitch:
Jason Kilar, below, was at both Amazon and Hulu and talks about culture as a means to enable scaling:
Ben Thompson (of Stratechery) talks about the difference between platforms and aggregators:
Todd Yellin (VP Product at Netflix) at Adobe’s 99U in NYC: “Create a Culture of Iconoclasts”
Below, Patty McCord, former Chief People Person at Netflix, talks about culture:
Navin Iyengar discusses “Consumer Science” at Netflix, with some relatively recent A/B test results from Netflix non-member testing, below:
Additional video edits, of my talks and workshops:
Click here to watch “Netflix’s Customer Obsession” at Productized in Lisbon.
Click here to watch my “Netflix’s Customer Obsession” at Productized in Cleveland.
Click here to watch “Digital Disruption: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” at the NY Product Conference (NPS of 77)
Click here to watch “Leaders Lead.”
Click here to watch “Netflix: From Product Strategy to Execution.” (NPS = 63)
Click here to watch “Branding for Builders” for Product School. (NPS = 78)
“Chegg: Wicked Hard Decisions” focuses on the tough decisions this textbook rental startup made to go public. (NPS of 61— very high for a first-time test drive.)
“Inventing the Future (Is Hard)” uses the metaphor of colonizing Mars to demonstrate why long-term, step-function innovation is so hard as we apply the “GLEe” strategic framework to 20 years of innovation at Netflix. (NPS of 71.)
Click here to watch my new “Branding for Builders” online talk for Product School. (NPS = 78)
"Leaders Lead" at the NYC "Product Leader Summit," below :
"From Product Strategy to Execution" at Products That Count in NYC (NPS = 90)
Click here to watch my full “Branding for Builders” talk. (NPS = 75)
Click here to watch “Netflix: Personalization 202” at Meetup (the company) in NYC. (NPS of 72).
Click here to watch my "Customer Obsession" talk at “Industry: The Product Conference” in Cleveland (NPS of 89!)
Here’s my 350-person “Hacking Your Product Career” webinar with Product Collective. (NPS of 77).
Exec summary:
Watch “How Netflix Built a World-Class Culture”