Lenny Distilled

Move fastest on what's already working, not what might work

Strategy → Prioritization

The adjacent possible is a set of actions that you do, that you can do. They are right in front of you that if you do them, they would work, almost certainly work.

Alex Komoroske Thinking like a gardener, slime mold, the adjacent possible: Product advice from Alex Komoroske

Scale your bright spots. Find what's working and do more of that. Almost all the time, we always had at least a small glimmer of a bright spot. And then we'd scale that and then we'd continue forward and we'd find some more and we'd scale those.

Graham Weaver How to break out of autopilot and create the life you want

If you see that something is working really well, then it's almost like you should focus on doing that more until you hit some point. It's like, 'Okay, now we do have that category captured or handled as much as we want,' and we should expand to new area.

Karri Saarinen Inside Linear: Building with taste, craft, and focus
Supporting

I actually have to talk them out, focusing on diversification too early... Put all of your energy... Don't get distracted with diversification. We'll get there. Lean more into this, hit this growth rates, stand this up.

Yuriy Timen How to grow a subscription business
Supporting

I focus on what gets you excited, not focus on what you think will move the metrics. Because every time I have a guest where I'm like, 'I really think this person's going to move the metrics.' It doesn't. And then I interview someone who no one has ever heard of, and I get these emails like, 'Wow, that was such a good episode.'

Chris Hutchins Launching and growing a podcast
Supporting

Unless you see pull, just people pulling the product out of your hands, you don't want to be spending money. You should be like, default, no.

Eric Simons Inside Bolt: From near-death to one of the fastest-growing products in history
Supporting

If you can slice up your decisions into smaller and smaller decisions, I'm like, 'This next step definitely makes sense.' It will almost certainly pay for itself or the very least won't be too expensive. And then it might allow these other things to happen and you take it.

Alex Komoroske Thinking like a gardener, slime mold, the adjacent possible: Product advice from Alex Komoroske
Supporting

You can't optimize your way to product market fit. I don't care at the early stages if something's optimized by 5% from an email.

Claire Butler An inside look at Figma's unique GTM motion