Product 101

2025-08-18

A product evange-list (some also applies to other areas like Founders, Growth, and GTM).

Even though I am technical and previously worked as an engineer, I prefer working with Product.

I prefer communicating with others, then planning, delivering, improving, and scaling a product. Rather than architecting and coding most of my day. It suits my personality and skillset best.

Luckily for me, AI will help me maximise this. Coding will be mostly automated in the future and Software Engineers will spend most of their time focused on Product, solving problems, and talking to customers.

That being said, I will always enjoy learning and directly working with SOTA technology.

Anyway, here’s a list of things I have written down along the way and believe are required to be successful working in Product:

• You care about BOTH outcomes and output.
• You care about the whole, not just one part of the puzzle.
• You innovate. Seriously, try new things.
• You leverage technical innovation. And drive everyone to do so too.
• You operate just fine under pressure (but try not to break down).
• Your product should lead (and copy if needed!), but never follow.
• Your product drives your business.
• You product leads your growth. Your product is the pillar to how your company grows, and ultimately wins.
• You connect the dots between what’s being built and how it performs in-market.
• You have the ability to break down vague problems, prioritise ruthlessly, and simplify requirements into a shippable MVP.
• You also have the ability to break down precise and complex problems.
• You know the fundamentals and the nitty-gritty.
• Your focus is always people (sometimes awful, annoying people).
• You are a storyteller (keep telling yourself that).
• You know how to pick trade-offs, hopefully. Eyes closed, head first, can’t lose!
• You are everyone’s strategic partner, but you follow one and only one strategy.
• You operationalise feedback. (Even if it’s the worst feedback ever, which many times will be)
• You control reactive decisions (as much as you humanly can). You always listen but know when to react.
• You trust your gut (and try not to vomit when doing so).
• You envision the product (mostly a blur at the start, slowly painting the edges).
• You paint a clear product vision (somehow).
• You prioritise long-term over short-term.
• You are an expert prototyper (make AI do the work).
• You have systems and workflows. You automate and innovate these systems and workflows wherever you can.
• You inspire collaboration and reduce friction (please, this is huge!).
• You are full-stack. You can speak Engineering, Sales, GTM, Growth, and Product at the same time (or you pretend to).
• You understand and own the full customer experience (God bless you!).
• You continuously reevaluate your current and future product.
• You can visualize both the big picture and the minute intricate details.
• You are a true leader. You can lead without explicit authority, which is incredibly hard.
• You are analytical. Data drives your thoughts and actions. But, again, trust your gut and wing it too.
• You are a first principles thinker, whatever that means! (No, seriously, listen to Elon Musk explain FPT.)
• You kill bad ideas often, good ideas every now and then, but never great ones.
• You clear blockers and hope to god not to add new ones along the way.
• You continuously reevaluate your beliefs. Including this entire list.