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What does it really take to found a company? Courage, guts, and a lot of hope. You've got to jump into the unknown and move fast because time is your biggest enemy. Today, we're learning from someone who lived this reality for five years. No shiny rainbow, just the reality of founders in the trenches. Former Intercom Product Manager, Enzo Avigo, knew what he wanted. He dreamed of having his own company. He spent over five years building June.so, a B2B SaaS analytics platform that started with 6 AM meetings at Starbucks and ended with joining Amplitude's team. What sets this conversation apart is Enzo's willingness to share the critical details most founders keep private. His story dismantles many of the polished narratives dominating startup advice today. Enzo openly shared his experience navigating Y Combinator, raising funding, and ultimately making the difficult choice to sell, which provides rare insight into both the entrepreneurial journey and the acquisition process. For anyone building a B2B product, struggling with market positioning, or curious about what really happens when startups join larger companies, this episode delivers practical wisdom earned through years of real-world experience. Here are some nuggets of knowledge you’re going to get from this episode. 7 Key Takeaways from the Episode 1. Find Your Co-Founder Through Direct Outreach "I remember watching a video from YC at the time that said that the best way to find a co-founder is to go through your network, maybe LinkedIn, and list five people you think you would be interested to work with and message them in the next 24 hours." Enzo's practical approach to finding a co-founder involved identifying five people from his network and reaching out within 24 hours. Surprisingly, his co-founder turned out to be a colleague at Intercom whom he already worked with daily, proving that sometimes the best partnerships are hiding in plain sight. 2. Most Startups Don't Segment Deeply Enough "We didn't niche down enough. We always assumed that a segment was a niche, while it wasn't for our product. Initially we're like, okay, let's focus on early stage startups. And then we're like, okay, let's focus on early stage startups that are product driven. And then we're like, startups, product driven, B2B SaaS. And then at the end we were like, B2B SaaS, Vertical SaaS." Enzo's biggest mistake was thinking basic segmentation was enough. It took years to realize they needed to go from "early stage startups" to "product-driven B2B vertical SaaS companies" to achieve true product-market fit. 3. Your Most Active Users Aren't Always Your Best Customers "The people that will pay for your product are not necessarily the ones that are the most active in your product. We found out that not all problems were equal." When June introduced monetization, they discovered that usage intensity didn't correlate with willingness to pay. B2B customers with bigger problems were willing to spend significantly more than highly active users with smaller pain points. 4. Moving Upmarket Requires Intentional Strategy "Unless you say like, no, this is the amount of work we're willing to put into owning the startup segments, and we're going to go intentionally to seed series A, series B, you're going to end up in some sort of depth loop where you stay in your existing market forever." Enzo learned that without intentional planning to move upmarket, startups get trapped serving their initial customer base forever. The endless feature requests from existing customers can prevent the focus needed to graduate to higher-value segments. 5. Social Media Trends Stop Working When Everyone Adopts Them "Now, if you look at videos done by startups, they're recorded by cameras that cost close to 10K. They were great three years ago because it was really uncanny, but now it's standard and everyone is doing it." Enzo warns against following visible trends on platforms like LinkedIn. By the time high-production videos became standard for startup announcements, they lost their power to capture attention because everyone was doing the same thing. 6. Choose Your Distribution Channel Based on the Message It Sends "The medium you're using already communicates something about your product. If you see a video of a startup that has raised money on LinkedIn, it's a whole different feeling than when I found out products like Linear on Twitter." Different platforms convey different messages about your product before users even hear your pitch. Finding Linear on Twitter felt like discovering a secret tool for early adopters, while LinkedIn announcements feel corporate and mature. 7. Acquisition Can Be About Impact, Not Just Exit Strategy "How many companies are going to be using June next year, in two years, in five years? How much can we change that inflection point? And how much impact would we have if we joined forces with someone who has realistically more impact than us?" Rather than viewing acquisition as a failure or simple exit, Enzo framed joining Amplitude as a way to increase their impact. Sometimes the most ambitious path forward involves joining forces with a larger player rather than going it alone. Share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s keep untrapping the product world together. Talk soon, David Pereira 100XPM Mastermind This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

What’s real progress? Is adopting a framework a sign of evolution?Is shipping features faster a solid progress sign?Is making your strategy clearer than ever the way of accelerating? Maybe yes, maybe not. Every team has different challenges, and your context matters most. Yet, every team would benefit from starting with their challenges and then choosing what to bring to the party to improve their situation. To bring some clarity to this challenge, I got Tim Herbig to our podcast, and you’re going to enjoy a lot this chat. It’s honest and insightful. You will for sure get knowledge bites you can apply right now. I got to know Tim a few years ago in Cologne, Germany at the DL Summit 2022. He’s inspiring and a great storyteller. His content impressed me because it’s well presented and designed (I even got jealous about it). And the insights per minute are incredible. As Tim released his book, Real Progress, I couldn’t ignore it. I got my copy, read it, and got him to the podcast to get beyond it. This episode is brought to you by Productboard, the intelligent product management platform. See how Productboard can help your product teams ship faster and deliver high-impact products. Head to productboard.com/spark. This episode is 39 minutes. And here are a few things you’re going to get from it. 1. The Pragmatism Principle “Do what is needed, not what is expected. Whatever scrappy non by the book way makes the customers happy and increases the business value. Who is there to say that’s not the right way.” 2. AI Gets You to the Hard Part Faster “AI allows you to get to the hard part faster. Use it to take the shortcuts that are limiting yourself and then face the hard questions that are still in front of you.” 3. Frameworks Are Not Universal Truths “Every framework should have washing instructions. This is a snapshot of what has worked for one company in a specific context in a specific point in time. It’s nothing more. But don’t treat it as this is the way.” 4. OKRs Expose Problems, They Don’t Solve Them “OKRs don’t solve your problems per se. They make the goals more visible, more painful. And then you have to make a decision as a company how you want to deal with that.” 5. Use What You Already Have “There’s so much there. Look at the other things, artifacts you have around you. You don’t necessarily always have to go deeper into a practice, but you can look sideways.” 6. Discovery Is Risk Reduction, Not a Ritual “If you think discovery is talking to 10 people every week and nothing else, you might think you can’t do discovery with this feature idea of the CEO. If you think discovery is everything that reduces uncertainty, there’s probably stuff you can do.” 7. Product Management Should Be Treated Like a Product “Tell me, a year from now, what has changed? How do the product teams operate differently? How would you know? It’s embarrassingly simple. That’s what we’re doing with our products. We describe changes in behaviors for customers, but many companies struggle with doing that for the people they have on the payroll.” 8. Velocity Measures Shipping, Not Value “Velocity is not bad. It’s bad when you confuse it and you think that velocity shows you progress. It just shows you can deliver something at certain speed. But then what do you do next?” 9. More AI Features Doesn’t Mean Better Product “You can produce more LinkedIn posts, but they all read the same now. So what’s the point? More features means more support requests, more technical debt, more UX questions. Can you maintain it or is your product very quickly full of features you quickly produce?” 10. Match Goals to Team Capabilities “You give a team an outcome goal, but maybe the team doesn’t even have the capabilities to measure that goal. You have a great outcome metric, but you can’t measure it. So is that better? I would say it’s not.” Do you feel you need any help in 2026? Here are a few ways I can be your guide to help you make the best of 2026. * 100X PM Mastermind: If you want to move from PM to Product Leader, this 3-week program will supercharge your growth. People from 15+ countries attended it already, and the feedback is inspiring. Join our upcoming program in January. * Private Coaching: When you have specific challenges like strategy, career growth, positioning, or simply defeating BS management. I offer 30-min or 60-minsessions. You bring the problem, and we sort it out together. * Product Leadership Advisory: If you’re looking for more in-depth collaboration, I can be your advisor. I’ve helped 50+ organisations so far, and I’m confident I can help your business grow. Reach out to [email protected] * Product Workshops: If you want to level-up your teams’ expertise, I offer practicable remote and in-person workshops. Check it out here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

What makes you roll your eyes? Another wild claim about AI coming for you. Not what we’re going to talk about today, this is about hope and inspiration. I sat down with Gagan Biyani, Maven CEO and Co-Founder of Udemy, for one of the most honest conversations I’ve had about AI, education, and what it really takes to build something meaningful. Here’s what struck me most: While everyone’s racing to replace humans with AI, Gagan is doubling down on human connection. While others promise exponential growth curves, he’s sharing the messy reality of wandering in the wilderness for three years before finding product-market fit. This isn’t your typical founder story of overnight success. It’s the raw truth about building in uncertainty, staying stubborn about your vision when everyone else pivots, and why motivation matters more than perfect content. If you’re building products, managing teams, or just trying to stay sane in the AI chaos, this conversation will ground you in reality while giving you hope for what’s actually possible. My brain is still pumping hard after this 50 minutes of insightful conversation. Here are a few things you’re going to get from our talk. 7 Key Takeaways That Will Change How You Think 1. Motivation Trumps Content Every Single Time “I think in education, the big insight that I have is that motivation is actually more important than the content. It’s more important than the personalization, it’s more important than anything AI can provide.” Most product teams obsess over features and functionality. Gagan learned that 90% of the challenge is getting people to actually care enough to engage. The lesson for any product builder: solve for motivation first, everything else second. 2. AI Won’t Replace You, But It Will Supercharge You “AI is not as smart as everyone makes it sound. And it’s not improving at the speed that people make it out to be... I can’t just feed it Maven and say, why don’t you go run Maven for me? It’s not even close.” The most refreshing take on AI I’ve heard. While his engineers ship 50-80% of code via AI, Gagan can’t trust it to write a single LinkedIn post without heavy editing. Reality check: you’re not losing your job, but you’d better learn to dance with the robots. 3. The Platform Shift That Changes Everything “Zoom is really the bedrock of Maven, right? It’s the platform change, it’s the iOS to Uber, Zoom is to Maven.” Every breakthrough product rides a platform wave. Uber needed smartphones, Netflix needed a powerful connection, Maven needed Zoom’s ability to create intimate learning experiences with 50-2000 people. What platform shift are you missing? 4. Why Most Companies Die in the Wilderness Years “We actually had a big crash at the company... It took us many years of just sort of wandering in the wilderness, trying to figure out if we still had something.” Maven struggled with retention for years while every competitor pivoted. Yet, Gagan believed in his vision and didn’t give up, which clearly paid off. Today, they have tens of thousands of students. That’s a stunning achievement. 5. Technology Adoption vs. Innovation Reality Check “There is rarely an exponential curve of technological innovation. You know, there is often an exponential curve of technological adoption.” The S-curve truth bomb: breakthrough moments are rare and short. Then society spends decades actually implementing the change. I live in Munich, Germany, and I still receive letters from the tax office, and they like it when I send letters back. I think AI will be around in 2179, according to my forecast. 6. The Amazon Principle for Any Product “If you can figure out what the number one and number two criteria are for your user in your market and just focus on that, you’re much more likely to be successful.” Bezos built Amazon around three things customers wanted: low prices, wide selection, and fast delivery. Everything else was noise. What are your customers’ top two criteria? Everything else goes in the trash bin. 7. The Cultural Shift That Beats User Numbers “If you ask an average product manager in tech today, where do you go to learn new things? ...it’s probably like double digit percentages of product managers will tell you, I took this course on Maven.” Revenue and users are just numbers. Cultural mindset shift is what truly motivates. When your category becomes the default answer to “where do I go for X?”, you’ve won before the numbers show it. This conversation reminded me why I love honest founders who share the messy reality behind the polished success stories. The future belongs to those who build with humans at the center, not in spite of them. What resonated most with you? Hit reply and let me know. Talk soon,David This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

“Everyone has their own agenda. They’re not telling you the truth, or they’re telling the truth in a way that benefits them.” When I heard this sentence from Hubert Palan, Productboard Founder & CEO, I became speechless, and that’s when I realized how valuable critical thinking is. This conversation is real, human, and rare. Hubert shared lessons that you will benefit from regardless of whether you’re a product manager, software engineer, designer, or leader. Such insights will help you grow. Let me give you some blunt insights from our conversation. The Three Brutal Decisions That Built ProductBoard Hubert shared the choices that shaped ProductBoard’s journey to $1.7 billion. The first hit during the 2022 recession when they dramatically shifted from SMB to enterprise. That meant walking away from existing business. The second was the classic enterprise pressure. Big customers bring big revenue and bigger demands. ProductBoard drew boundaries. They said no to customer-specific features that wouldn’t advance the roadmap for everyone else. Even when it meant losing those customers. The third decision came recently. They moved resources from the traditional roadmap to AI. Existing customers complained about missing features. But Hubert knew: “If we don’t make the investment today, you’re going to be screaming at us two years from now that we’re not the leaders with AI capabilities.” You’ve got to listen to signs and separate customer wants from needs. That’s the difference Hubert nailed. Conviction backed by understanding versus conviction backed by hope. Stop Pretending AI Will Do Your Thinking For You Here’s the part that will piss people off: AI isn’t going to save you from bad product thinking. Hubert tested this with his co-founder. They spent a whole day going through discovery to delivery using Cursor and Claude Code. The efficiency gains weren’t in coding. They were in specification. Understanding the problem. Identifying edge cases. Making sense of dependencies. Activities that used to take weeks now take hours. But only if you know what you’re building and why. The lines between product, design, and engineering are blurring. Hubert calls it compression. Like smartphones crushing cameras, MP3 players, and GPS into one device. Product managers are building with AI. Engineers are diving deeper into user research. The roles are merging. But the fundamental question remains: are you building the right thing? ProductBoard Spark, their AI agent, doesn’t just generate PRDs. It helps product managers maintain context across massive organizations. When Salesforce has 20,000 people in R&D, context sharing becomes critical. The agent knows your customers, your competitors, your market positioning, and your internal principles. You won’t get that from ChatGPT. The context is missing. And without context, you’re just generating slop. The Uncomfortable Truth About Success Stories When Hubert started ProductBoard, Steve Blank gave him advice. Ask potential customers: “Do you understand jobs to be done?” If they don’t, move on. They’re not your target segment yet. That’s focus. Start with a small segment that has high pain and high maturity. Nail their needs. Then expand. Most teams do the opposite. They try to serve everyone. They compromise for big customers. They chase every shiny feature request. But here’s what Hubert said that made me pause my notes: “You can’t just read something on Reddit that someone did and assume it’s going to work for you.” He called a friend at Uber to verify a glowing blog post about their tech stack. Turns out the solution completely failed. They had to re-architect everything. But you wouldn’t know that from the blog post. “Everyone has their own agenda. They’re not telling you the truth, or they’re telling the truth in a way that benefits them.” That includes Sam Altman on podcasts. That includes blog posts from successful companies. That includes the framework someone swears by on LinkedIn. The bigger and later-stage the companies are, the better trained their executives are at telling stories that benefit their businesses. It’s all planted. Rehearsed. Strategic. Take it with a grain of salt. Apply first principles thinking. Figure out what works for your context. What Actually Separates Winners From Losers The AI boom has accelerated the birth of many startups. Everyone’s building with the same technology. The differentiator isn’t technical skill anymore. It’s domain expertise. Understanding the market. Knowing customer pain points deeply. Sharing those insights across your team. Creating forums for uncomfortable conversations that last four hours because people need time to think and align. “The knowledge of the industry and the domain is the most important thing in your overall success,” Hubert said. Good product managers understand the product. The best ones master the market. That hasn’t changed. AI just made it more obvious. So here’s the question: when was the last time you spent four hours in an uncomfortable workshop, actually understanding your market instead of asking AI to summarize it for you? Whenever You Want to Grow Further, I Can Help You Out There are 3 ways I can help you out even further: * 100X PM Mastermind: If you want to move from PM to Product Leader, this 3-week program will supercharge your growth. People from 15+ countries attended it already, and the feedback is inspiring. Join our upcoming program in January. * Private Coaching: When you have specific challenges like strategy, career growth, positioning, or simply defeating BS management. I offer 30-min or 60-min sessions. You bring the problem, and we sort it out together. * Product Leadership Advisory: If you’re looking for more in-depth collaboration, I can be your advisor. I’ve helped 50+ organisations so far, and I’m confident I can help your business grow. Reach out to [email protected] * Product Workshops: If you want to level-up your teams’ expertise, I offer practicable remote and in-person workshops. Check it out here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

Why do some products succeed while most fail? Think about your favorite products, what’s your connection with them? Nesrine Changuel argues that emotional connection is what increases retention, referral, and revenue. She wrote a very needed book in the era of AI, where we focus on functional needs often ignoring the emotional connection. Her book’s called Product Delight. This episode isn’t about techniques that apply only to big tech. This is something really necessary for everyone. Nesrine is an outstanding product professional, formerly at Skype, Microsoft, Spotify, and Google, she’s practical and down to earth. I had the pleasure of meeting Nesrine a few years back at Productized, her drive and eager to help inspired me. And this episode will inspire you. It will give hope on the value you bring to creating great products. Here’s how you can learn more from Nesrine: * Product Delight Book * Delight Tips (Substack) * Nesrine’s Website * LinkedIn This episode is brought to you by Productboard, the intelligent product management platform. See how Productboard can help your product teams ship faster and deliver high-impact products. Head to productboard.com/spark. Beyond B2B & B2C debate “Slack didn’t win because it had better chat features. It won because seeing your team’s emoji reactions made work feel human.” Nesrine How many times did you hear something like: Is this a B2B or B2C thing? I’d probably be richer than Musk by now if I got a dollar every time I hear this question. And honestly, it’s not easy to answer. We try treating both B2B and B2C as different worlds. And I think we got it all wrong. Nesrine surprised me with a new term, B2H, Business to Humans. Build products for the human behind it. If there’s a human using it, that’s B2H, and as humans we deserve delightful products. Of course, if you’re building a product where AI agents are your target audience, that doesn’t apply. But, as of now, most products have a human using it. Think about it. Why Should You Care About Delight? Everyone now talks about AI, and even how AI-PMs are making 500K+ USD per year. So why should you even bother listening to Nesrine about Delight? Let’s be honest. We’re going nuts with AI and sometimes forgetting the essence of great products. We don’t build products for its sake. We build products to supercharge users. What’s happening today? We’re using AI to ship faster. But faster doesn’t matter if we’re building products people tolerate instead of love. That’s not progress. That’s just expensive noise. Many companies are building soulless products without noticing it. And we should challenge that. We should act differently. Whatever we choose to build is something that should improve people lives, ultimately enabling business value. That’s when delight is your ally to the madness we live in today. Nesrine will equip you during this episode, and you will leave it inspired. You may wonder if you should drop AI altogether. No, you shouldn’t. But you should use AI to delight people, not to create noise. Bringing Delight to Life Shall We Talk About the Elephant in The Room? You’re busy, how will you find time to delight your users? Nesrine called me out on this one. I told her it’s not easy to do that, and teams receive unbearable pressure, how can they do it? Bluntly, she completely disagreed with me. Nesrine said: “Delight isn’t a framework. It’s a mental model.” You can ask yourself, “Which emotion do I want the user to feel while using it?” Then, you use the product and feel your emotions, how does that match with your intentions? Delight is what makes product hard to replace because we connect to them beyond their functional needs. A Question for You: How are you delighting your human users? Take action today for a better tomorrow. Only when we try something new, can we grow beyond our imagination. This kind of thinking - moving from features to impact, from busy to strategic - is exactly what separates silent executors from product leaders. Which brings me to something I’m proud of. A few months ago, I started running my mastermind, 100XPM, and I couldn’t have expected better results. A few participants already grew into leadership, and I continuously get messages like this: * “I’m more confident because I have what I need to overcome my challenges.” * “I shaped my mindset. Now, I’m not a silent player anymore. I have influence in important topics.” * “I got the courage I needed to step into new adventures, and I couldn’t be happier.” This mastermind is for the game-changers, those who want to transform the product world. Those who dare to challenge the status quo. We’re opening another round in January, we will kick it off on the 26th at 7 pm CET. Do you want to become the Product Manager that earns respect? Join us This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

Do you love or hate OKRs? Be honest with that, your boss isn’t listening to your answer. Even after 17 years of playing the product game, I haven’t found teams longing for OKRs, but I have seen too many despising it. Yes, we can blame the player instead of the game. But is it so? If you've ever felt like OKRs are more of a burden than a benefit, you're not alone. In my latest podcast conversation with Radhika Dutt, author of "Radical Product Thinking," we dug deeper into why this beloved framework might be hindering your team's success. Radhika shares how she helped Signal Ocean double their sales twice while reducing churn from 26% to 4% by ditching traditional goal-setting for something revolutionary: puzzle-solving. You can download the OHL slide deck for free here. VelocitiPM: The AI platform for discovery and actionable insights to supercharge results, not backlogs. Try VelocitiPM now Limited offer: First month free, then 50% off the next 6 months (+ lock in current pricing before we increase monthly subscription from $59 to $79 monthly) Promo code V50 A question for you: What are you up to in 2026, the year is already knocking on your door. And I want to give you the best content I can, would you take 2 minutes to share your objectives with me? I promise to read all answers and reflect on them to give you the best content I can. 10 Key Takeaways from Radhika Dutt 1. OKRs Haven't Evolved in Decades "We haven't challenged this concept of OKRs or goal setting since it became entrenched in business culture. It's a 75-year-old idea... the same ideas relabeled and repackaged, they date all the way to 1940s." The framework that worked for unskilled assembly line workers doesn't fit today's knowledge work. 2. Goals Create Performance Theater, Not Performance "What goals and OKRs do is create performance theater... you're trying to figure out how do I show these numbers? Even if you're not being malicious, even when you're not trying to spin numbers, it kind of biases you because you want to see the good numbers." Teams focus on looking good rather than being good. 3. OKRs Kill Collaboration "It reduces collaboration because you want to hit your numbers because you want to look like a high performer, whereas by helping someone else, your own numbers might not look good." When everyone owns different metrics, teamwork becomes competition. 4. The "Set Better Goals" Advice Is Wrong "If it didn't work for you, [OKR experts say] it just means you set the wrong goals. Whereas I think... it's not just a matter of if you just set the right goals, then everything works well. It's a much bigger problem than that." The problem isn't execution; it's the framework itself. 5. Goals Focus You on the Wrong Things "Whatever numbers you set, I realized that it's focusing you on the wrong area because you discover as you're executing where the actual problem and bottleneck lies." Real insights emerge through work, not planning. 6. People Are Naturally Motivated by Puzzles "We all like puzzles... When I asked you what puzzles do you want to solve this year? Look at that. It's like you had a flood of ideas for it instantly." Curiosity beats quotas every time. 7. The OHL Framework: Objectives, Hypotheses, Learnings "A framework I call OHLs... it's a framework for puzzle setting and puzzle solving. And so as a leader, when you set direction, you're setting direction around the puzzle you're solving." Replace rigid targets with flexible investigation. 8. Three Questions That Drive Real Performance "How well did it work? What did we learn? Based on how well it worked and what did you learn, what would you try next?" These questions create continuous improvement loops that actually work. 9. Learning Speed Matters More Than Experiment Speed "The pace of that learning is so important. I think that is much more important than how quickly are you experimenting." Quality insights trump quantity of tests. 10. Reflection Is Where Real Learning Happens "We don't learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience." Without reflection, experience is just activity. Are you ready to escape the performance trap? Listen to the full conversation to hear how Radhika's team achieved remarkable results by solving puzzles instead of chasing numbers. Plus, download her free OHLs toolkit at radicalproductthinking.com to start implementing this approach with your team immediately. The question isn't whether you can afford to change your approach. It's whether you can afford not to. Let’s keep untrapping product teams together, David This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

What worked yesterday to re-risk ideas no longer works today. David J. Bland used to say, “Building is the most expensive part.” In the age of AI, that’s no longer true. And many teams are shifting from learning first to building first. Either you like it or not, that’s what’s happening. The question is, how do we deal with our new reality? If you care about building what matters faster, you will find this podcast insightful. This episode is brought to you by Productboard, the intelligent product management platform. See how Productboard can help your product teams ship faster and deliver high-impact products. Head to productboard.com/spark. Before jumping to this podcast, I have an invite for you. 2025 is getting to the end, and I will be running two more public workshops, which you can gain applicable insights from: * How to Craft Product Strategies that Work: DL Summit Cologne, Germany, November 12th. 10% Voucher for you DLS25DAVID10. Grab your spot. * 100X PM - How to Move from Backlog Manager to Product Manager. Vilnius, Lithuania. November 20th. Check it out. — Having David J. Bland on the podcast was an honor. His book Testing Business Ideas has a special place on my shelves, travels to workshops, and has genuinely changed how I think about testing ideas. So, when he agreed to talk, I expected to gain insights. What I got was something better: honesty. David admitted his thinking had evolved, and he wished he could change a few things in his book. He talked about being conflicted by his own framework. He shared stories of teams he coached that got stuck testing forever. This wasn't a polished thought leader performance. This was a practitioner reflecting on six years of real work since his book launched. The conversation reminded me why I respect him. He's still learning, still questioning his own methods, still trying to solve the messy reality of how teams actually work. If you've read his book or tried business experiments, you need to hear this conversation. David's thinking has evolved, and so should yours. Even if you haven’t read the book, the benefit you will have from these 40-minute lessons will quickly pay off. Learn more about David J. Bland: * LinkedIn * Website * Testing Business Idea What David Taught Me (And What Might Surprise You) 1. Teams aren't the problem. Systems are. "Your teams are going to figure out how to work this way. Now it's becoming, okay, do we have an environment that allows us to work this way?" We keep training teams on experimentation while ignoring the organizational barriers that kill experiments. David now spends most of his time on strategy and leadership because that's where the real constraint lives. 2. Light evidence is still evidence "I've stopped using that weak language, as I said, so now I'm using light and strong. I feel like when you say the term weak, and you go to an executive or a sponsor, they almost have a reaction to that word." Even David's language has evolved. He learned that calling evidence "weak" made executives defensive. "Light evidence" frames it as directional rather than inadequate. 3. The say-do gap will fool you every time "I wouldn't spend a lot of money on just what a customer tells me. I want a little more skin in the game." Customers lie. Not intentionally, but they do. What people say they'll do and what they actually do are different things. Design experiments that reveal behavior, not just opinions. 4. B2B experimentation works better than most think "I would say almost all of my customer base is B2B companies right now." David's client base shifted from B2C startups to B2B enterprises. Which experiments work best? Preference and prioritization tests. Things like card sorting customer jobs or using "buy a feature" to force real trade-offs. 5. Over-testing is a real trap "I just vividly remember sitting down with the VP of product and she was like, why are they still testing this?" Early in his career, David got teams excited about testing, but didn't teach them when to stop. Teams continued to test safe assumptions while overlooking risky ones. His framework now includes systematic assumption mapping to prevent this. 6. AI changes the building equation "I don't know if I could go and say building is most expensive way to learn because I'm like, no, it's not. I can build this in a couple hours." AI tools let you craft functional prototypes quickly. This changes David's core message. Building isn't the most expensive way to learn anymore. Building the wrong thing still is. 7. Keep humans in the loop "I've been really trying to evangelize this human in the loop. If you're not in the loop, sometimes you get a list and you're like, wait a second, these assumptions are for experiments for assumptions that don't even really apply to me." AI can help generate assumptions and experiments, but you need to stay involved. David learned this from his own AI tools when people got generic results from vague inputs. 8. Most empowered teams aren't actually empowered "I feel like we're following this advice where we're sort of like checking the box and following steps of a process. But when this process was initially created, it meant we were critically thinking about things." Teams follow experimentation frameworks, but can't question why they're building something. That's not empowerment. That's process theater. 9. Start where you're stuck "I would look for areas where there were things that we were trying to solve for and we weren't able to. And so being able to say, well, why don't we just go check?" Don't try to change everything. Find problems your organization can't solve and suggest checking assumptions. Use language like "I'm sure you're right, but can we go check?" to reduce defensiveness. 10. Mindset beats methods "I can find probably within the first 60 seconds, whether or not they're going to be coachable." David can tell immediately if someone will succeed with experimentation. It's not about intelligence. It's about being open to being wrong. Fixed mindset kills every framework. The Real Takeaway David spent six years watching teams apply his book. Some succeeded. Others got stuck in the process without progress. The difference wasn't the tools. It was the environment, the mindset, and the willingness to actually change based on what they learned. This conversation isn't about perfect frameworks. It's about the messy reality of trying to build things people want in organizations that resist change. Worth your 40 minutes. Trust me on this one. Do You Want to Become a More Valuable Product Professional? After 17 years on the road, I crafted the 100X PM Mastermind. It’s the best cohort you can get to help you move from product manager to product leader. 10 live lessons, including unscripted talks, and 30 minutes of free advisory after each lesson. You bring the challenge, we solve it together. Join our upcoming 100X PM Mastermind. Here’s what people say about it: And this is our program to transform you into a product leader. Have a lovely day, David. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

This conversation reveals why 6-week ideas often become 6-month nightmares. Beyond that, it clarifies how you can break free from that. This podcast isn’t just an informal chat; it’s pure gold for you. If you truly care about driving value beyond deploying frameworks. You’ve got to listen to this episode. Ryan isn’t going to sell Shape Up for you, or try beating Scrum to its knees. This is a lesson nobody is talking about, and it can transform how you work. Before we jump into the podcast, let me share a personal story with you. This episode is brought to you by Usersnap. Make smarter decisions — with clarity. Usersnap, find opportunities worth building. Beyond Frameworks Last year in Cologne, I met Ryan, who fundamentally changed my perspective on product development. He’s the author of Shape Up and a former Head of Strategy at 37signals. Now, with such baggage, you might be surprised by how generous he is with his time and ideas; he openly shared many insights with everyone around him throughout the entire conference. I'd been following 37signals for years, watching with high interest as they built profitable products with tiny teams while the rest of us struggled with endless meetings and dragging projects. Meeting Ryan in person confirmed what I suspected: their success wasn't luck. It was a system. After our conversation for Untrapping Product Teams, I walked away with insights you can't find in any book or blog post. Ryan shared the real mechanics behind their approach, including parts of the framework that never made it into Shape Up because they were so automatic at 37signals, they didn't even realize they were doing them. If you've ever wondered why your projects quickly become a drag, or why alignment feels impossible despite constant communication, this conversation will reshape how you think about product development. It’s roughly 50 minutes. After you watch it, I promise you, your thinking will be different. Write your take in the comments. Find more about Ryan: * LinkedIn * Website * Shape Up 10 Game-Changing Insights from Ryan Singer 1. The Real Problem with Scrum "Scrum is okay if you have a lot of kind of smaller pieces of well understood work, because it's a little bit like a sausage machine. But if what you're trying to do is new product, new features, meaningfully different functionality... then for those kind of things, you need to have a lot more alignment." 2. Why Your Projects Keep Expanding "You can write a few bullet points and think that this is clear direction, but it's not clear enough. And then it can also happen that you have like whole bunch of Figma files up front. And of course they look beautiful, but then as soon as you start trying to really build them, then again, the questions appear." 3. The Hidden Step Before Shaping Ryan revealed "framing" - the crucial step that's implicit in Shape Up but never named. "When somebody says dashboard, can I turn that into this is what's going wrong today and this is why this is an opportunity and this is what we're going to try to fix." 4. How Many Big Bets Do You Really Get? "How many six weeks do you get in a year? Not that many, right? That is a major expense. It's a major investment." This simple math reframes everything about prioritization and founder involvement. 5. The PM Hiring Trap "If you think that you're gonna hire a PM who's gonna answer that for you, that PM shouldn't be a PM. That PM should have a C in front of their title." Ryan explains why founders can't delegate strategic decisions to PMs. 6. Why Bigger Impact Needs Bigger Alignment "The bigger the impact, the more alignment we need. You don't need a lot of alignment to go solve a ticket that you can solve in two hours. But as soon as it becomes into, I need multiple people to all be working on the same thing... for a period of weeks... then I need to have a lot more alignment and clarity." 7. The Figma-First Problem "We are seeing amazing results when we do High Fidelity last. Last." Ryan argues that starting with wiring and interactions, rather than pixel-perfect designs, unlocks massive speed gains. 8. How to Stay Involved Without Micromanaging "What you want is to be able to be more involved in very important moments and less involved in the details of execution... Can I be really involved for three hours and then not involved for three weeks?" 9. The Dashboard Revelation Ryan shared a story where a "dashboard improvement" request actually revealed a critical problem with failed subscription payments. "What started as Dashboard turned into fixing payment recovery for failed subscription payments." 10. Creating True Project Clarity "If from a leadership standpoint, I don't feel that I can have a conversation about what is important to the business and then get alignment... and then in six weeks later, see that thing actually working. If I can't do that today, then what I need to do is find a solution." This conversation went deep into territory that most product development discussions never touch. Ryan didn't just explain what to do; he showed why most approaches fail and how to think differently about the entire product development process. The full conversation uncovers how to implement these concepts in organizations of any size, why the "small team" criticism of Shape Up misses the point, and practical steps for moving from endless meetings to focused execution. What resonated most with you? Reply and let me know which insight hit hardest. Are You Ready to De-bullshitize the Product World? After 17 years on the road, I crafted the 100X PM Mastermind. It’s the best cohort to clarify how we eliminate the real enemy: b******t management. Join us and let’s help teams do real product management, creating real value for users and business. 10 live lessons, including unscripted talks, and 30 minutes of free advisory after each lesson. You bring the challenge, we solve it together. Join our upcoming 100X PM Mastermind. Here’s what people say about it: And this is our program to transform you into a product leader. Talk soon, David Pereira100X PM Mastermind This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

Whether you love or hate AI, you cannot neglect it. 9 out of 10 CEOs are demanding that teams ship AI features. I bet you get annoyed with the push to ship AI for the sake of it, and yet you may benefit from it if you reframe your thinking. Instead of “Which AI features should we ship?” ask “Which problems can AI solve now that we couldn’t in the past?” Teresa Torres asked precisely that question, and in a few months, shipped her first AI product, the Interview Coach. When Teresa had an accident while playing Ice Hockey, she had to stop and stay quiet at home for months. Instead of complaining or doing nothing, she spent those months going from heavy AI user to building her first AI product. Not because she's a developer. Not because she had a team. Because she put her energy and critical thinking into it and started building. This isn't another "AI will change everything" podcast. This is what one of the world's smartest product people learned building with AI for the first time. Alloy brought this episode to you. Prototypes that look exactly like your product. Check it out now Here are a few valuable links for you: * Read Teresa’s content for free * Building My First AI Product: 6 Lessons from My 90-Day Deep Dive * Connect with Teresa Torres You can watch this one on YouTube as well: 10 Key Takeaways From Building an AI Product 1. Start With Assumptions, Not Interviews "Even if you can't test them, even if you never get to the point where you run an assumption test, just doing the exercise of asking what needs to be true in order for this idea to work will help you see the flaws in your ideas." Most teams want to jump straight to customer interviews. But when business stakeholders own customer relationships (especially in B2B), assumptions become your entry point. List what must be true for your idea to work. You'll immediately spot the fatal flaws. 2. Discovery Becomes Everything When Delivery Becomes Cheap "We're going to go through a period where companies think they should build every idea that they have. And then we're very quickly going to realize this leads to terrible products." If AI makes building features trivial, companies will build everything. Products will become an incoherent mess trying to serve everyone. The companies that survive will be those obsessed with deciding what not to build. Discovery isn't dying - it's becoming more important than ever. 3. AI as Thought Partner, Not Replacement "I'm much more a fan of the, it's gonna augment our ability to do our tasks... when I work with it as a thought partner, it's pretty fantastic." Stop trying to outsource work to AI. Instead, pair with it like you would with a senior colleague. Teresa uses Claude to challenge her writing, suggest improvements, and push her toward better storytelling. The magic happens in the collaboration, not the delegation. 4. Building AI Products Is Easier Than Ever (But Still Not Easy) "For people that have high agency, it is easier than ever to build. It's still not easy, but it's easier than ever to build." Teresa went from never building an AI product to deploying one in production within months. But don't mistake "easier" for "simple." You still need to understand your problem deeply, design thoughtful workflows, and iterate relentlessly (over several months). 5. Single Prompts Don't Scale, Workflows Do "Most AI products are not single prompt. They're workflows or they're agents where the LLM is doing a variety of smaller tasks and then aggregating them to get a bigger response." Teresa's interview coach began with a single prompt that evaluated four dimensions. When the AI got confused between criteria, she split it into four separate prompts with specific contexts. Breaking complex tasks into smaller, focused steps dramatically improves AI reliability. 6. You Need Evals to Build Quality AI Products "When you push to production, you start to see errors that you just can't identify before you're in production... evals are a very systematic way of looking at what errors you're getting." Teresa spent more time building evaluation systems than building the initial product. Evals help you measure error rates, test improvements, and maintain quality as you iterate. Without them, you cannot guarantee the quality of the output. 7. Critical Thinking Becomes Your Superpower "Critical thinking is always the most important skill. It used to be like when we had gatekeepers on most of our content, we could outsource the critical thinking to the editors and the publishers. But we don't have those gatekeepers anymore." With AI generating an infinite amount of content and eliminating traditional quality filters, your ability to separate signal from noise becomes invaluable. Don't just consume - evaluate sources, question claims, and go deep on concepts that matter. 8. Go to the Source, Avoid Surface-Level Content "When you learn about a new idea, if you hear about an idea from somebody where they didn't go deep on that idea, there's some danger in misinterpreting it and really not understanding the core value." The internet floods us with shallow takes on important concepts. When learning about frameworks like Jobs to Be Done or Opportunity Solution Tree, find the original sources and people who've implemented them extensively. Surface-level interpretations often miss the point entirely. 9. Use AI as an Additional Team Member "Claude found opportunities that I did not, which really surprised me, but it missed a lot of opportunities that I found... I absolutely would add AI to my team." Don't outsource synthesis to AI, but definitely include it as a team member. Have everyone identify opportunities individually, then compare notes with Claude's analysis. You'll catch opportunities you each missed alone. 10. Pain Teaches Faster Than Success "I think what's going to happen is AI is going to accelerate those really painful business results. And the silver lining is we're going to get to realizing discovery is even more important faster." Companies will build too much with AI, confuse customers, and face painful consequences. The survivors will learn that speed without direction is chaos. This pain will create a renaissance in product discovery practices. While others debate whether AI threatens product management, Teresa built an AI product that helps product managers improve their skills. She didn't wait for permission or perfect knowledge - she identified a problem and solved it. The future belongs to product people who see AI as their thought partner, not their replacement. Those who use it to amplify their judgment, not replace it. Those who understand that when building becomes easy, deciding what to build becomes everything. Teresa's broken ankle led to a breakthrough product. What will your constraint create? Teresa Torres teaches product discovery to thousands through her courses and blog at ProductTalk.org. Her new AI interview coach is available through her continuous interviewing course, and she's launching a podcast called "Just Now Possible" focused on AI product-building stories. Are You Ready to Advance Your Career? After 17 years on the road, I crafted the 100X PM Mastermind. It’s the best cohort you can get to help you move from product manager to product leader. 10 live lessons, including unscripted talks, and 30 minutes of free advisory after each lesson. You bring the challenge, we solve it together. Join our upcoming 100X PM Mastermind. Here’s what people say about it: And this is our program to transform you into a product leader. Have a lovely day, David. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

Your engineering team just told you they need six months to change a simple dropdown menu. Your biggest client wants "just one tiny customization" that will require rebuilding half your architecture. Your sales team promises prospects "we can definitely build that" without asking you first. What's happening? You're living the nightmare every B2B product team faces but no one talks about: project stacking. Here's what everyone is ignoring: Your company has been successful for years building custom solutions for clients. You've grown to 100+ people. Revenue is solid. Leadership thinks you're crushing it. But underneath, everything is breaking. You can't ship new features without breaking existing ones. Every "small change" takes months because of dependencies you didn't know existed. Your codebase looks like a house built by 50 different architects who never talked to each other. The hard truth no one wants to face: You're trapped between being a project company and a product company. And this middle ground is where B2B teams go to die. Sebastian Borggrewe and Thomas Hartman call this "project stacking" - when companies try to build a scalable product by stacking custom projects on top of each other. You end up with a Frankenstein monster that serves everyone poorly. This Conversation Changed How I Think About Product Transformation I've known Sebastian and Thomas for years now. We're all Munich-based product people who share an obsession with helping teams escape these traps. They organized the Just Product conference, where I gave one of my best talks on "Untrapping Product Teams." But this conversation revealed something most product books miss entirely: the problem isn't in product management. It's in the organization around product. Sebastian and Thomas are the founders of Product Masterclass and authors of "From Project to Product." But what makes their perspective unique is that they don't just look at product practices - they examine the entire organizational system that either enables or destroys product thinking. This conversation is pure gold, especially if you’re in the B2B area. This 40 minutes will save you a lot of headaches. Let me give you a glimpse of what you’re getting from it. 10 Game-Changing Insights That Will Transform Your Approach 1. Projects aren't evil - being stuck between project and product is Projects are not bad... The issue is not with one or the other, but if you get stuck in the middle and you essentially try to develop a product by building a lot of projects on top of each other. - Sebastian 2. Success can be your biggest barrier to change They think it's very easy to begin with... they have been successful until now. And that's usually the biggest problem." - Sebastian 3. The segmentation problem starts in sales, not product B2B companies often take any customer opportunity that comes their way, regardless of fit. This creates a mess that product teams inherit and can't easily fix. 4. Individual contributors can drive bottom-up change There's only so much an individual contributor can do... But there's also a way to push the ideas bottom up... It takes longer. It definitely takes longer, but it's 100% doable. - Sebastian 5. Write down expectations to level up your negotiation power It's really important that you write down with the stakeholder what's the expectation once the thing is finished. Because if you wrote down the expectation, you cannot lose anymore. - Thomas 6. Change requires either pain or strong leadership vision Most companies don't wake up and decide to become product companies. They change because something hurts or because leadership sees a bigger opportunity. 7. Your roadmap reveals your organizational maturity Look on your roadmap and just trace back where the requests come from... In product organization, the communication tends to turn around 180 degrees. - Thomas 8. Product managers can't fix organizational problems alone The "egg organization" analogy shows why fixing discovery and prioritization isn't enough if the rest of the company still thinks in projects. 9. Stop trying to fix everything - ask how you can help others succeed Frame it in the sense how from a product perspective can we help you be more successful. And then you will see where the gaps are. - Sebastian 10. Context matters more than frameworks Every journey is different. Also, every journey of an organization is different. And also tiny steps make a difference in the right direction. - Sebastian Bottom Line: If you're stuck between project and product mode, you're not alone. And you're not doing everything wrong. But you need to understand that product transformation isn't a product problem - it's an organizational design challenge that requires a completely different approach. Listen to discover the mental models that will help you navigate this transition without burning out your team or fighting your organization every step of the way. Do You Want to Reach What Most PMs Cannot? After 17 years on the road, I crafted the 100X PM Mastermind. It’s the best cohort you can get to help you move from product manager to product leader. 10 live lessons, including unscripted talks, and 30 minutes of free advisory after each lesson. You bring the challenge, we solve it together. Join our upcoming 100X PM Mastermind. Here’s what people say about it: And this is our program to transform you into a product leader. Have a lovely day, David. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

The PM life is like a roller coaster, and you know when things will get bumpy. You get an email from the CEO with the subject: “Quick idea” You get that Slack message from the Operations Director with another promising idea. And of course, the Marketing Manager would not forget to send you the seven must-dos because our competitors are nailing us. What do you do? You know what to do, but time isn’t on your side. Let’s imagine a pretty real situation. Stick with me, and I will show you something you truly wish you had. Your sales director walks into your office with "just a quick idea" that needs to be live next quarter. Marketing wants three new features to support their upcoming campaign. Support is escalating customer complaints that "should be easy fixes." Your CEO just returned from a conference with a game-changing insight that absolutely must be prioritized. Meanwhile, you know none of these requests come with user research, market validation, or even basic problem definition. You're being asked to execute on assumptions, build solutions to undefined problems, and hit deadlines based on wishful thinking rather than evidence. But here's the trap: When you push back and ask for time to do proper discovery, you become the bottleneck. The person slowing things down. The one who "overthinks everything" instead of just shipping features. You're caught between doing your job right and keeping stakeholders happy. Between building what users actually need and delivering what the loudest voice in the room demands. Between being a strategic product leader and becoming a glorified feature factory manager. The pressure is real. The timelines are aggressive. And the tools you're using weren't designed for this reality. The question is, how do you deal with that? The easiest thing to do is to bow to the pressure and do what the boss wants. It’s “safe,” but is that the right thing to do? The best approach is to slow down and identify which opportunities will drive the most value. However, that takes time, and structuring discovery is no easy task. Unless you have a tool that does that for you… Now, I’m going to get you to learn more about VelocitiPM. Is it an ad about the tool? No. It’s a tool, I started getting excited about it, and I believe it can help you as a PM. I invited the founder to share why he started this and to demonstrate to you how to use it. Let’s get into it. The PM Who Lived This Problem at Amazon Scale In this episode of Untrapping Product Teams, I sit down with Anthony Argenziano, founder of VelocitiPM and former product leader at Amazon, eBay, and Intel. Anthony didn't just experience these pressures - he lived them at companies where the stakes couldn't be higher and the pace never slowed down. His solution isn't about replacing PM judgment or eliminating the need for critical thinking. It's about giving PMs the foundation they need to have informed conversations with stakeholders, rather than flying blind. It’s a 35-minute episode. Watch it to gain insights, but seriously, try out the tool and check how that helps you. It’s a freemium model, so no commitment for you apart from checking it out. Even if you don’t like the tool, I’m convinced you will want the approach. It’s solid. 10 Hard-Earned Insights from the Trenches 1. The Tool Chaos Is Real and Expensive "Every product person that I spoke to uses five to 10 or more different products, just to manage product discovery, your product strategy, just kind of the PDLC in general." 2. Discovery Time Scarcity Isn't Optional Anymore "Every product manager knows they need to do product discovery, but they just don't have time because they're focusing on so many things." 3. AI Should Amplify Your Expertise, Not Replace It "We do not want to replace product managers. We wanna supercharge them. We wanna make them better at their job, more efficient." 4. Starting With Something Beats Starting With Nothing "This gives you a great starting point because it is easier to kind of refine and take something in and kind of run with it rather than start from blank slate." 5. The Future Favors Small, Empowered Teams "It's either gonna be the product trio that leads all of product development...I think it's gonna be one to three." 6. Requirements Documents Are Waterfall in Disguise "I don't want to hear anything that ends in an RD, right? Because it's the antithesis of Agile and modern product management." 7. PMs Must Stay Product Builders, Not Tool Builders "Accountants aren't building QuickBooks...Salespeople aren't building their own CRMs...build products. Don't worry about the tools." 8. Product Fundamentals Trump Technology Trends "Focus on building the right product, solving the right problems, focusing on personas and jobs to be done...just focus on that." 9. Great Products Win Regardless of Hype Cycles "If you're building great products, if you're building things that your customers love because you're solving real problems for them, you're going to be successful." 10. PMs Are Natural Orchestrators in Complex Systems "The product manager will be kind of the conductor of this product development orchestra...you can't take a human out of it." What This Conversation Actually Reveals This conversation is no fluff. It’s not about AI loading you with stuff, and you trying to get the signs through the noise. This conversation reveals that it’s possible to use AI to amplify PMs ’s potential when you focus on one area. Anthony focuses on the core part, discovery. That’s messy and unstructured. He used his method, combined with AI agents, to streamline discovery, and I appreciate that. Anthony demonstrates how his platform works in practice - generating personas, problem maps, and user stories from basic prompts. But the real insight isn't about the tool itself. It's about how PMs can maintain strategic thinking while handling tactical pressures. The demo showcases what's possible when you have a foundation to build upon, rather than starting every discovery conversation from scratch. When stakeholders present their next "urgent" request, you can quickly model out the problem space, identify assumptions, and have an informed discussion about trade-offs. This isn't about surrendering your critical thinking to AI. It's about using technology to create the space for better thinking. The Real Question Isn't Whether AI Will Change PM Work The question is whether you'll use these changes to become a more strategic product leader or remain trapped in reactive execution mode. Anthony's framework offers one path forward, but the core principle applies regardless of tools: PMs who can quickly move from stakeholder requests to structured problem analysis will outperform those who can't. The stakeholder pressure isn't going away. The competing priorities aren't getting simpler. But your ability to respond with insight instead of guesswork can dramatically improve. Ready to see how strategic PMs are handling the reality of modern product pressure? Listen to this episode to understand how discovery can happen at the speed of business demands, why the product trio model is gaining traction at major companies, and what specific approaches you can use to maintain strategic thinking under tactical pressure. P.S. - This isn't about finding the perfect tool. It's about reclaiming your role as a strategic product leader instead of a glorified backlog manager. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

Too many PMs are drowning in meetings, metrics, and meaningless updates. We’ve got to stop this madness. In this no-nonsense conversation with Aakash Gupta, we unpack what it takes to become an AI-powered product manager, not by playing with random tools but by radically changing your work. If you're serious about impact, speed, and leveling up your craft, these 45 minutes will honor your time. Launching features at AI speed, but adoption crawls behind? Turn feature walkthroughs into adoption engines with Chameleon. Record yourself explaining any feature → AI creates interactive demos, in-app announcements, help docs, and launch assets. Better yet: see which demo viewers become actual feature users. Finally, prove your launches drive real usage on repeat. See how it works Here are seven takes from this episode: 1. $300K Salary Isn’t Freedom Who would quit a mid-six-figure salary as a VP of Product? Many people set that as a goal. Yet, it isn’t risky when you trust yourself and transform a side gig into a growing business. “It was a no-brainer. I was making the same from both, but one gave me control.” 2. Every PM Will Be an AI PM, or become an Ex-PM Whether you’re in banking or SaaS, you'll be outpaced if you’re not AI-powered. “Within five years, if you're not using AI regularly as a PM, you'll be irrelevant.” 3. Your Prototype > Your PRD Docs don’t drive alignment. Prototypes do. And you can build one that’s worth sharing in 11 minutes. “A picture is worth a thousand words. A prototype is 10,000.” 4. Don’t Just Prompt. Context-Load Like a Pro Better prompts aren’t clever. They’re informed. Your output quality is as good as your input. The GIGO principle applies everywhere: Garbage In, Garbage Out. “Add your PRD template, writing style, and even past reviews to Claude Projects. It levels up your output.” 5. Designers Work Better When You Prototype First It's easier to edit something real than to imagine from scratch. “You're not replacing your designer. You're accelerating their impact.” 6. Still Don’t Have a License? You’re Already Behind Your next 1:1 with your VP should be about enterprise AI access. Every PM now deserves an enterprise license for one of the LLMs. “Ask for ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Grok. No license, no progress.” 7. AI Is the Fast Track. But You Still Need to Drive Tools don’t replace potential. They amplify it. Remember that you’re the driver, not the passenger. “The output’s only as good as your feedback. Great PMs shape the result.” Shall We Reshape the Product World Together? Join me to break free from outdated product management! Let’s foster the 100x PM movement! No more feature factory. Untrapping Product Teams Book: Practical insights to give hope to teams. Anti-BS Product Management: Escape the noise. Deliver value. How to Craft a Product Strategy that Works: Craft something that lasts. Product Discovery Done Right: Break free from the feature factory.f This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

How do you grow to 175,000 customers, 14 products, and a $920M valuation without roadmaps, top-down approvals, or micromanagement? In this episode, I talked with James Hawkins, co-CEO of PostHog. We dove into what actual empowerment looks like, why chaos might be your greatest asset, and how to turn engineers from coders into true builders. This conversation might hurt if you're still gatekeeping with Jira tickets and roadmap approvals. Here are 7 Key Takeaways you will get from this 40-minute episode: 1. Product Engineers > Software Engineers PostHog hires product engineers who decide what to build, not just how. A product engineer decides what to build. As opposed to someone who follows a product requirements doc.– James Hawkins 2. Roadmaps Are Suggestions, Not Contracts Their “roadmap” is public, unordered, and deadline-free. It’s context, not a commitment. They're in no particular order, they're not guaranteed, and there are no deadlines.– James Hawkins 3. No PM Babysitters PMs don’t gate work. They provide deep context and trust engineers to ship what matters. The role of a product manager at PostHog is to provide context to teams. It is not to decide what to build or set deadlines.– James Hawkins 4. Chaos Isn’t the Enemy; It’s a Strategy They borrowed the Y Combinator mindset: small teams, full autonomy, minimal alignment overhead. We win on our ability to ship quickly. Who ships fast with more than 3 people? Almost no one.– James Hawkins 5. Design Inspires, Doesn’t Block Design sets future perspective, not a pixel-perfect design. And engineers decide how close they get. We design things super far in the future to inspire—engineers can totally ignore it.– James Hawkins 6. No Launch Days, Just Continuous Shipping They don’t make a big fuss about launching new features. Yet, they focus on shipping fast. Features go live frequently and continuously. Now we just continuously ship new stuff. It creates a brand where every week, there’s something cool. – James Hawkins 7. Flat Structure + Intrinsic Motivation Wins There’s no micro-management, no mandatory 1:1s, and minimal hierarchy. If you need to introduce deadlines to get work done, you've already failed. – James Hawkins Shall We Reshape the Product World Together? Join me to break free from outdated product management! Let’s foster the 100x PM movement! No more feature factory. Untrapping Product Teams Book: Practical insights to give hope to teams. Anti-BS Product Management: Escape the noise. Deliver value. How to Craft a Product Strategy that Works: Craft something that lasts. Product Discovery Done Right: Break free from the feature factory. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

What’s disturbing you now? Maybe you don’t like how you play the product game. What’s something you could do differently? In 2018, road mapping annoyed Malte Scholz so much that he couldn’t take it anymore. He had to do something about it. Instead of complaining, he created a spreadsheet that helped people prioritize better, stopping the nonsense of long meetings and consensus decisions. Yet, Malte didn’t stop there; here went on to build a platform that today is used worldwide, streamlining roadmaping and the product game. This episode is 40 minutes, and you get real stories and humble lessons that can inspire you to take action and act today for a better tomorrow. Not convinced yet? Here are 7 nuggets of knowledge from this podcast. 1. Validate the problem before the pitch. Don’t start with a pitch deck. Start with something real people need.“We had a product, users, and feedback — all before anyone could even pay for it.” 2. If no tool fits, build the one you wish existed. Scratching your own itch is a strong signal, as long as the pain is real.“I tried every tool under the sun and nothing worked. That’s when we started building our own.” 3. Speed matters more than perfection. The slower you validate, the more you risk wasting time on the wrong idea.“We probably lost a year doing agency work. In hindsight, I would’ve gone all in sooner.” 4. Treat gut feelings like hypotheses. Your intuition might be right, but it still needs to be challenged.“It was a gut decision, but one we debated for three months before acting on it.” 5. Modularity wins in messy organizations. Flexibility is the only way to serve complex companies with shifting needs.“Most companies are just messy. You can’t force them into rigid tools.” 6. Distribution is half the product. A great product without reach is a silent failure.“You need to think about distribution half your day or more.” 7. Build relationships before you need them. Acquisitions often start years before the first offer.“When Lucid approached us, it wasn’t random. We’d built trust for years.” Shall We Reshape the Product World Together? Join me to break free from outdated product management! Let’s foster the 100x PM movement! No more feature factory. Untrapping Product Teams Book: Practical insights to give hope to teams. Anti-BS Product Management: Escape the noise. Deliver value. How to Craft a Product Strategy that Works: Craft something that lasts. Product Discovery Done Right: Break free from the feature factory. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe

If you’re tired of the AI noise, this episode will help you understand how to leverage AI. It’s straight to the point, hands-on content. This podcast is different because we had a live interaction on how to use AI. You can expect real examples. Mustafa Kapadia has been in this game for 25 years, including leading innovation at Google and products at IBM. Currently, he’s helping organizations become more effective at product development. Honestly, we can learn a lot from him. Before jumping into the content, I have a no-brainer offer to you. I’m running a free lightning session with Maven. We will cover how to avoid deadly mistakes with product discovery (most teams face them). Back to today’s episode. Here are 10 key takeaways from this podcast. 1. PMs fall into three AI adoption buckets "Most PMs kind of fall into three buckets. There's one bucket that is in denial. There's a second bucket on the other side where they're all in on AI... And then there's the middle bucket... more of a surface-level use." 2. The top 1% use AI as a second brain "The other bucket that we just talked about, the one that's all in—the top 1%—they use it for so much more. They literally use it as a second brain." 3. AI can do days of work in minutes "David, I have been able to condense work that used to take my PMs days to do. Right. And it is a high-quality response." 4. The best AI users have playbooks and structured prompts "The top PMs also have this playbook. And the playbook is basically their top most popular tasks." 5. AI enables better decision-making, not just automation "AI can actually make them better PMs. And so you can actually use AI to make better decisions, be more creative, be more innovative, create documents that are much better quality." 6. Micro-tasking with AI yields better results than a “magic prompt” "Instead of having AI asked to do a complete PRD, it's much easier when you ask AI to just do segments of your PRD, because the output quality is much better." 7. Prototyping with AI accelerates iteration "We've been talking for the last, what, 10-15 minutes, right? And we went through four tasks that usually take PMs weeks to do." 8. AI will not replace PMs—it amplifies their strengths "AI lets you be more you." 9. The key to great AI results is asking the right questions "It is more around how much you can get out of AI, how much value you can squeeze out of AI, and it all comes down to the first fundamental skill: how you ask questions." 10. Bias and hallucinations can be mitigated with multiple models "There's nothing stopping you from creating and opening up a second tab and firing up the same question and having the two LLMs compete with each other." Whenever you’re ready, I can help you boost your career * Mastering Product Discovery: Cohort-based course for you to learn what most product people miss about product discovery. It’s hands-on and straight to the point. It had attendants from 30+ countries. Join us now to level up your product game. * Untrapping Product Teams Book: A book about hope for product folks. It gives you multiple perspectives on how to face reality and act today for a better tomorrow. Read by thousands of people in 70+ countries. * Anti-BS Product Management: Self-paced course to help drive value when almost everybody distracts you. You will learn the most common - and avoidable - mistakes made by product people and how to overcome them. You can expect lessons based on reality, not fantasy. * How to Craft a Product Strategy that Works: If you’re confused by what a product strategy is and how to craft one that works, this course helps you solve that. You will get all you need to create a sound strategy. * Product Discovery Done Right: How can you break free from the feature factory madness? Applying mindful product discovery will equip you to gradually move from outputs to outcomes. This self-paced course is dedicated to helping you learn what most product people miss out on. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dpereira.substack.com/subscribe