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David vs. Goliath: How Smaller Products Can Win Against Larger Competitors
One of the most intimidating moments for a product team is realizing who their competitors are. You spend months building a product, refining features, and talking to customers. Then someone points out that a billion-dollar company already operates in the same space. I’ve seen teams panic at this stage. The assumption is usually the same:…
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The Battle for a Customer’s Mind: Why Product Positioning Matters More Than Features
I’ve seen products with impressive feature sets struggle to gain traction. I’ve also seen relatively simple products grow rapidly despite having fewer capabilities than their competitors. For a long time, I wondered why. The answer often had very little to do with the product itself and everything to do with how it was positioned. Customers…
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Leading From the Outside: How to Succeed When You Don’t Quite Fit In
Early in my career, I spent a lot of energy trying to fit in. I watched how other leaders spoke in meetings. I paid attention to how they presented ideas, built relationships, and handled disagreements. I assumed that if I wanted to be successful, I needed to become more like them. The problem was that…
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Before You Build Anything: Product Discovery Techniques That Actually Work
One of the most expensive mistakes a product team can make is building the wrong thing well. I’ve seen teams spend months designing, developing, and launching features that customers barely used. Not because the engineering was poor or the design was flawed, but because the team never truly understood the problem they were solving. That…
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Searching for Product Market Fit: The Most Important Journey a Product Will Ever Take
If there’s one phrase I’ve heard more than any other in startups and product teams, it’s “product market fit.” Everyone wants it. Founders chase it. Investors ask about it. Product managers obsess over it. Yet despite how often it’s discussed, product market fit is rarely a moment that arrives with a flashing sign saying, “Congratulations,…