Run the Business Half Year Review
What to Read / Watch from H1 2024
It’s been an interesting 6 months where I’ve been pouring more energy into this newsletter and also experimenting with new concepts. I’m stealing a page from other creators and doing a recap of the 1st half of the year for readers who may have missed things (or new subscribers who may not be familiar with the whole catalog).
I’ve been checking in with readers more directly on what they find valuable, especially my most engaged readers (Substack analytics and the app have been quite useful here), and it seems the nuances of building and scaling B2B products is something folks find I have a unique voice for. One very popular most I wrote in that vein was about how AI can help you get into the revenue path quicker / easier, and that could potentially be an unlock for value-based pricing. You can read the whole essay here and there’s a robust discussion on LinkedIn around this post as well - check it out and chime in as well.
Longtime readers know that I’ve been writing and speaking about how to connect B2B product work to revenue (generation, preservation, sustainability) for a long time - I actually distilled all that thinking into a keynote that I gave at ProductCon New York in May - check out the whole talk below:
You can see the slides from my ProductCon presentation here and I wrote a recap with some guidance on how to apply the framework in practice here - ultimately all R&D (and GTM) folks are just trying to connect daily decisions to the bottom line.
But I still really enjoy musing about general product management topics, and I had 2 posts recently that name some obvious anti-patterns and offer a path out.
Accidentally Narrowing Your Market, which delves into the downside of talking to your customers too much and ending up building a niche product for power users
Falling into a Feature Factory touches on the root causes of what I’m calling “reptilian product development”, which start the feature factory spiral - I tried to outline the most common reptilian reactions and side effects that precede a feature factory, along with some course corrections, in the table below:
I did launch a premium plan recently and have been adding more value for paying subscribers, including a private Slack channel and exclusive video deep dives (60 Minute Stories). You can read about all the other benefits here, and if you’d like to upgrade and support my work, you can do so via the link below 👇🏽
The most popular episode of 60 Minute Stories by far was my discussion with Anurag Wadehra on layering AI into your B2B product and motion, which is a topic many PM and GTM leaders are grappling with these days. The audience Q&A in this session was particularly insightful since a lot of leaders have already attempted to invest here. The clip below has Anurag highlighting how human involvement in the feedback loop is what slows down most workflows. You can learn more from Anurag via his Growth Matters newsletter.
I also went back to my Amazon roots and chatted with Liz Fireman about the convergence of hardware and software PMs for connected devices. The clip below is us talking through how a new product might enter a crowded market vs big players.
Between my experience on the Kindle (a reimagined reading ecosystem) and Liz’s work at ARENA (a smart home gym) we were able to talk through some interesting trends, constraints, and possibilities with connected devices, including:
the different business models for monetizing (hardware vs subscription etc)
industries that are primed for new connected products to disrupt status quo
companies which do a great job with the end-to-end experience and how
the IoT devices hall of shame and what issues lead to unnecessary smart products
the different mentalities / realities of hardware PMs in comparison to software PMs
org design and how it can be both helpful and a hindrance to shipping quality UX
The most recent episode of 60 Minute Stories digs into a topic that I had not seen much public knowledge sharing about: M&A. It’s a subject on which there is not much accessible literature, because the people involved are too busy innovating or operating, so it was really eye-opening to get a first-hand account of how a deal comes together. I have 2 former Box co-workers who were generous enough to walk me through the 2 sides of the transaction: (1) a head of corporate development representing an acquirer and (2) a startup CEO representing the acquiree.
There were also some interesting frameworks / heursitics shared in the session if this something you’re tasked with executing. One that stood out for me was the 4 types of deals and how to frame the question of whether the deal makes sense differently for each of them:
talent - how does it accelerate the area of focus?
IP - what does it unlock from a capabilities lens?
existing product - how does it grow our business?
new market - how much of a head start do we get?
As we head into the 2nd half of the year, expect more free (and paid) insights on all the topics laid out in my blueprint for this newsletter:
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