The Inevitability and Opportunity of Leaving Specs to Interpretation or How I Work as a PM

The following was a forum post in reply to a question about how to improve product specs so that they leave less up to the developers’ interpretation. My post snowballed into an essay on how I think about working with developers as a Product Manager in tech. I’ve been practicing and talking about these ideas … [Read more…]

Marketing Innovation with Familiarity

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg explains how America’s Committee on Food Habits convinced American civilians to eat organ meats during World War II while the government was shipping conventional cuts to the troops. The trick was creating a sense of the familiar. Popular opinion said offal was awful, but the Committee found success in mass mailers that suggested how … [Read more…]

Mary Meeker on Freelance Trends

Yesterday, Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends 2015 highlighted the growing number of freelance workers in America (slides 124-138). After establishing the jaw-dropping size of this population–53mm people in the US alone, 34% of the total American workforce–she focuses on the impact of online marketplaces and internet connectivity on freelancers’ ability to find work. This slide paints a rather rosy … [Read more…]

Why We’re Building Brief

Martin Anderson and I have been working on Brief for a few months now, interviewing potential customers, prototyping, and experimenting. Throughout the process, we’ve explored several ideas around the themes of augmented intelligence and aggregating and organizing information from disparate services. It has all coalesced into one vision: Brief is a platform for your business relationships: … [Read more…]

Walking in Circles in The Diamond Age

Reading Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, I came across an insightful passage about the dangers of conformist thinking: Nell encountered the footprints of another traveler on the road, who was soon joined by another traveler, and another. This continued until nightfall, when Purple examined the footprints and informed Princess Nell that she had been walking … [Read more…]

Strong Relationships Aren’t Luck, but They Can Create It

Strong relationships are the secret weapons of any great business. They are what get co-founders to work together with nothing but an idea and pluck. It’s how the first bit of capital comes in without a product to speak of or the whisper of a sale. The first customer is a friend of a friend. … [Read more…]

A File by Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet

Recently, Evernote CEO Phil Libin announced a plan to kill files. Evernote will be creating “a collaborative workspace, where colleagues come together whether in the same place or on opposite sides of the globe. Emailing files goes away, because ideas sit in a central repository accessible to a group. It’s a place to be creative … [Read more…]

Pitch Like A Batter

Last week, I began corresponding with VCs with the intent to raise money for Brief. By the end of the week, I had one request for follow-up materials and meetings (the best expected outcome) and 4 quick No’s. I felt terrible. I take pride in my deal-making skills and came away with a 20% success rate … [Read more…]

Cognitive Deficit

Have you ever thought about the number of platforms to which you could contribute or from which you get notifications about your friends’ contributions? Here’s a quick list off the top of my head: Facebook YouTube Twitter Vine Instagram Foursquare/Swarm Tumblr Yelp Wikipedia Trip Advisor LinkedIn Medium That’s a dozen. Having left out all the … [Read more…]