"If you can't sell or support your own product, I don't trust you to build the product. Product management is converting team potential into realized value."
PM role: convert potential energy into realized customer value
Don't start as a PM—start as engineer, designer, or salesperson
Build from the front lines first; that's your foundation
Only hire a PM when the team needs help they can't provide themselves
Core Skill
Great PMs Are Great Writers
Writing is clarity at scale — the core PM job: creating clarity internally and externally
You must be able to write compelling messaging in the voice of your customer
Not every PM needs to be a marketer, but you need to understand what good writing looks and feels like
Read widely: Anthony Bourdain, Joan Didion, compellin writers (not PRDs)
The writing habitGood writing comes from consuming excellent writing widely. Read beautiful prose, develop your taste, then produce your own. Repeat and iterate.
Joan Didion's insight
"I don't know what I think until I've written it down." Writing clarifies thought.
The two loops
Writing moves thought into action. Revision ensures others can understand it. Most PMs skip the second part.
Habit Builder
The Decision Log: Reps in Product Sense
Product sense = ability to make good decisions with insufficient data
Build reps by documenting decisions, rationale, and outcomes over time
Track with simple format: date + decision + reasoning + hashtag #decision + calendar reminder
Start lightweight: one decision per Sunday from Twitter/Hacker News
Compare prediction to actual outcome in 6 weeks, 6 months
The Shopify Shop App examplePredicted Shopify would hijack the consumer buying loop via package tracking. Tweeted the thesis. Months later, the team confirmed they were doing exactly this—but the reasoning was slightly different. The exercise informed his thinking.
Critical caveatA decision log is NOT a replacement for building. Observing the market without shipping is intellectual theater. Must combine both.
Hiring
The Unsell Email: Radical Honesty
At offer stage, send a transparent email listing "all the terrible things" the candidate should know. Pain points, environment challenges, role realities. If they read it and stay equally excited, you've found an A+ hire.
The origin: hired too fast, too many people left surprised within 6 months
Radical transparency upfront filters for culture fit and reduces regret hires
Also: conduct 6–12 month scorecard reviews against hire level to improve your interviewing
The benefitHigher-quality retention. Stronger alignment. Fewer surprises. Fewer internal transfers. One honest conversation saves months of friction.
Contrarian
PM Myths Kevin Rejects
✗Don't go straight into PMINSTEAD →✓ Start as engineer, designer, or salesperson first. Build from the front lines. That's your real education.
✗You don't need a PM if the team is smallINSTEAD →✓ You don't need a PM *role*, but the activities must happen. Someone's doing PM work already—clarify that.
✗Hire fast, figure it out laterINSTEAD →✓ Send the unsell email. Be radically honest. Fast hiring + misalignment = expensive churn. Slow hiring + honesty = retention.
✗Decision logs are for data scientistsINSTEAD →✓ Every PM should keep one. It's how you train product sense. Make predictions, log reasoning, review outcomes. Reps matter.