Want to get genuinely good at product management? Here's the short path we point people to, plus a worksheet we use with CEOs.
The Short Path
- Learn the fundamentals. Read everything Rohan Rajiv writes on product management at A Learning a Day. It's one of the clearest, most consistent sources on the discipline.
- Find your profit, then build. Make a copy of our Product Brief Worksheet and fill it out with your team before you create or build a new product. Few leaders actually know where their profit comes from, and the fastest way to grow margin is to sell more of the products that generate the most profit. Do this thinking up front, not after you've built.
- Go deeper. Subscribe to Lenny's Newsletter (Lenny Rachitsky) and read the archives; it's the deepest practical library on product and growth out there.
- Study great product decisions. Browse the graphic case studies from Growth Design, which break down real product and UX choices visually.
What Separates Good Product Managers
Reading and worksheets get you the vocabulary. What actually makes someone good at product is judgment about what to build and the discipline to say no. The best product managers spend most of their time understanding the customer's problem, not designing the solution. They can explain, in one sentence, who the product is for and what job it does. They kill features that don't serve that job, even popular ones, because every extra feature is a tax on the ones that matter. As you work through the path above, keep asking the only two questions that count: what problem are we solving, and how will we know it worked.
Work through those in order and you'll have both the mindset and the tools to make better product calls.
Related Malloy resources