What 96% of Product Managers do wrong (including you)

A large part of my day goes talking to Product Managers and if there’s one thing that I’ve noticed almost all of them do wrong it's - not shipping.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years of building products, it’s this -
Always Be Closing Shipping

It doesn’t matter if it’s a small change.
It doesn’t matter if it’s not the perfect solution
It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t have all the features.

Pixel perfection, grand debates on the new push system, that epic feature that came out at the 12 AM brainstorming session - none of it counts unless it’s shipped.

When you look back at your lives and products, it can feel like only a few things were important and really made a difference

It’s like that quote - “the days are long, but the years are short” 

Change is gradual and continuous.

To make sure you are always shipping, let me drop a truth bomb -
your users don’t give a fuck! Period.

And there is a lesson here.
No, not your LinkedIn lesson from ordinary happening.

But a reminder, for all product owners, designers, and researchers. (The folks who get on a daily standup call with their teams to approve or reject the next big feature, you know?)

The people who say “We can’t do this, what will our users think?”
Answer: Nothing

Your product is only a few minutes of your user’s life.
NO ONE is waking up thinking about you.
NO ONE is making love thinking about the latest feature you rolled out.

This might come off as demotivating (after all, all PMs want to do is make users’ lives easier) but it’s actually… liberating

Don’t you find it freeing to know - deep within- that no matter what you do, no matter how eccentric or amazing or poor your latest rollout was - your users will gradually move on?

How is this not a gift?

We’re quick to criticize our lowering attention spans, but I would like you to feel empowered by it.

Be willing to take risks, roll out something, test your hypothesis, offend a few users, get into a fight with the marketing team, and post an apology. Live a little. 🧘 

The worst thing that can happen is your hypothesis will be incorrect and Rakesh from the marketing team will give you a smug everything you pass them in the corridor.

What I’m trying to say is - Always be Shipping

I would love to hear some more unconventional advice that changed your perspective on something - can be absolutely anything.

Also, tomorrow is the India vs Pakistan World Cup match 🏆️ 
How much do you think will Virat score - my bet is 121 not out 🤞