Brandon Green

"0-1 product development" is the idea of building something from nothing. That is, you have an abstract customer or business problem you need to solve and no solution for it (0) and, as a PM, you need to figure out the first attempt at a solution (1) to address the problem. An example from my own career is Notebooks, a product I helped ship at Abstract - we had a meaningful number of customers abandoning our initial offering due to changes in the product design tooling landscape, and we needed t ...Read More

Everywhere! Users themselves, colleagues, market research, competitors, randomly in the shower. Generally, I like to consider each idea seriously and work through a few questions to help decide if they are worth building: What, fundamentally is the problem this idea is meant to solve? How worth it is solving that problem vs. others I know about? Does solving this problem create opportunities or risks in any form that I should think about? Is this a problem I need to solve now, in 6 months, in 2 ...Read More

This is hard! For me, it's a mix of having a good understanding and confidence that you have  (1) a clear hypothesis that you can test with a minimally viable product that is shaped by data and customer/market research, (2) confidence that you have a potential solution that can prove the hypothesis correct, and (3) an understanding of the risk and opportunity for building that solution, including the time it'll take to build, the availability of users willing to try your solution. When in doubt, ...Read More

A PM's job is to take in a lot of inputs (including the 3 listed in this question) and articulate a compelling strategy and roadmap around achieving the best outcomes for your business. Within those are assumptions, risks, opportunities, etc. that are worth digging into and questioning, and from there you can usually start to get a sense of where to focus. To a certain extent, you'll need to at least focus a little on all of these inputs, just to get a sense of whether they're worth digging deep ...Read More

I think the two most common mistakes in building 0-to-1 products are: Not acknowledging or checking some assumptions about the problem your product is meant to solve Over-investing in the first iteration of that product (the MVP) without having proven out the riskiest of your assumptions Under-investing in product market research (specifically the other products in the problem space and their strengths/weaknesses) I see a lot of PMs attempt to build things that are bigger and more complicated th ...Read More

So, in my experience of building 0-to-1, I've never had to do this before exploring a potential new product 😅 and candidly, I really don't like doing it because any projections are in my experience educated guesses based on inherently flawed source data - historical data that may not apply anymore, all sorts of biases, differences between other products and your new product, etc. What I try to do instead of offering revenue projections is work with my leadership/stakeholders/et al to understand ...Read More

I'll speak to commonalities in IC PMs since I have less experience hiring other product leaders. It's really just 4 things in my view: A clear ability to break down complex, multi-faceted problems into digestible, actionable chunks, as usually shown via some kind of case interview. Excellent ability to ask good, tough questions A clear track record of having an impact and/or continuous learning/improvement. This may not necessarily be demonstrated through previous work as a PM, but the candidate ...Read More

I don't think I have a great answer for this; I think there are a few possible points to consider though, and I think it ultimately comes down to how you understand the user/market problem your company is positioned to solve with its product(s). Is that problem best solved by a single product, or does a group of products better address the problem or need? If so, how and why? Is your product not serving the needs of your customers, and if not, why? Does the product have meaningful shortcomings a ...Read More

I personally bias toward PMs (or aspiring PMs) with a creative mind, whether that's shown through actual background experience in a creative field, or a highly creative or unconventional response to a question asked in the interview process. I find creative types (often with liberal arts degrees) to be highly effective PMs and leaders due to a common ability to connect dots and find problems and solutions others may not see or understand. This is not a requirement for a product role, but I do th ...Read More

I think going "above and beyond" is a totally subjective thing; it is up to each individual what is above their baseline of preparation for an interview. But - here are a list of things I think are table stakes, that every PM candidate should do at a minimum to prepare: Know the company you're interviewing with: their main products/features, how they make money, how they differentiate from competition. If you're interviewing in a division of a very large company (eg. Amazon Logistics or AWS, bot ...Read More