Lenny Distilled
Strategy → Vision & Mission
The job is not to follow the process. The job is not to learn every framework possible. The job is to figure out how to add value to customers that translates into value to the business.
In the long run, the measure of our success will be the amount of value that we create for customers, and you can put effort into demonstrating that you have created this value and stuff like that, but there's no substitute for actually having created it.
We weren't there to make perfect for us. We were there to delight the person who was buying the software. And our standards were untouchable. We said, 'If that person, the one we're describing is delighted with what we shipped, it's good. And if they're not, it doesn't matter what kind of excuses we have.'
I always think of, not what you're working on but what problem you're solving. In many cases, I get more energy from the problem I'm solving and who I'm solving it for.
Jeff would say, we took it as an article of faith. If we served customers well, if we prioritized customers and delivered for them, things like sales, things like revenue and active customers and things like the share price and free cash flow would follow. So therefore, when we're making a decision thinking about a problem, we're going to start with what's best for the customer and then come backward from there.
Acquisition channels just straight up don't work if you have a product that doesn't live up to the expectation.
We really see it as paramount that we have a qualified set of buyers who are looking for the items, the type of items our sellers are selling, and that we can help them make a purchase decision, and therefore a seller maker sale.
Even if you aren't being tasked with an outcome, if you do the work to understand these are the outcomes that matter to your business for your product, it's probably going to start with your business model, and then work to understand how the work that you're doing contributes to that.
In everything always talk from the customer's perspective, from the market's perspective, from the competitor's perspective, the very small number of PMs do that. They get dragged into internal politics, they get dragged into scrum management or scrum execution or product delivery, and you just can't win that way.
We have an obligation as product people to put that emotional energy back into people's lives.
I really can't remember where I heard this, but it really stuck with me: PMs own the why of a product. It doesn't have to be that the PM comes up with the idea, but I do think the why is something that I really always hold the PM uniquely responsible for.
The biggest thing is an amazing product that people love to use, right? I mean ChatGPT is the most hypergrowth product that we've seen in history potentially, because people are so excited to use it and it's working in interesting ways.
There's no day that people will wake up 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now and say, 'All else equal, I'd rather shop at a store with fewer items than more items or a store with higher prices than low prices or a store where things get to me more slowly versus more quickly.'
One thing that is just such a standout is having... And I mentioned GMS as our north star KPI, just having that, being absolutely front and center, being the drumbeat that we talk about in every meeting, the measuring stick that we measure the success of launches against.
When I first moved to Silicon Valley... you have people who get really excited about technology for technology's sake. And so just something being cool is like, 'Isn't it cool that we can actually do this?' drives a lot of people. And so to me, I'm very practical. If it's not something that is really bringing value to people, then the likelihood that that product's successful long-term is going to be pretty low.
The problem with funnels and pirate metrics and the favorites that I love to pick on are MQLs and SQLs is that nobody knows what those mean. It puts every customer in the same sort of buckets. It assumes that all customers and all products are the same. It puts businesses at the center of the business versus putting customers at the center.