"We received a gift from our competitors. They showed us that it's possible. Now we need to think how. Use your competition, know it, and take it, and set ambitious goals, and believe in yourself."
You're shipping 5 columns over months, competitor launches 30 in weeks
First reaction: impossible. But seeing it done = proof it's possible
That's when 150-person Monday realized something was fundamentally broken
The gift: a forced reckoning with how you actually build
The Realization
You're Building a Lot, But Are You Moving the Needle?
The weekly update: long, impressive, many features shipped
The problem: "What's the most meaningful thing we did?" Answer was vague
The insight: execution ≠ transformation. You can work hard and miss entirely
The fix: ambitious goals force different thinking (4 months → 1 day mindset)
The column transformation
Set the goal: 25 columns in one month. Build shared infrastructure. Two-week hackathon: each dev takes one column, ships in one day. Month 1.5: 30 columns shipped.
What changed
Defining what a column IS (shared structure, capabilities) unlocked the ability to parallelize the work. Not more hours. Different thinking.
The Playbook
How to Ship at 10X the Speed
Avoid fake speed: skipping quality or stages = burnout without breakthrough
Real speed is architectural: define the pattern, create infrastructure, enable parallelization
Set "impossible" goals: goals that make you realize you can't do it the old way
Get to the problem: PMs spend time on opportunity before solution (solutions are plentiful)
Measure impact, not effort: "We shipped 50 things" is meaningless. "We moved the needle on X" matters
The PM's real job
Relentless until impact is validated. That means: shared understanding of the problem, shared understanding of how you'll measure success, then test in real life.
Impact isn't always features
Sometimes the biggest impact is making current value more accessible, or connecting go-to-market better. Stop defaulting to "build more."
Making it Real
Align the Entire Org on Impact
Company goals dashboard with sound effects (Simpsons laugh on $1M collected)
Make the metric tangible and live — not abstract; everyone feels it
When goals are visible, partnership is visible — not just leadership feels wins
Creates a different conversation — everyone's hunting the same metric
The cultural shiftWhen your entire company lives a metric, it changes how decisions get made. People naturally ask: "How does this move the needle on what we're actually trying to do?"
Contrarian
The Bold Moves That Look Insane
✗Launching new products one at a timeINSTEAD →✓ Announce 5 products simultaneously. It signals "we're not a project management tool anymore," even if some fail.
✗Protecting past successINSTEAD →✓ Not taking bold risks is a bigger risk. You'll miss the leap. You have to let go of what worked before.
✗Slower shipping = better productINSTEAD →✓ More time doesn't yield better results. Speed to real-world feedback > careful internal polish. Ship fast, learn faster.
✗Praise from the product team is successINSTEAD →✓ "Amazing product" feedback is actually bad. Real success is users discovering it solves their problem, without you explaining it.