Frank Tisellano

Thanks to Sean Murphy and Theresa Shafer for inviting me to speak on the Cynical PM FrameworkThe Cynical PM Framework, a business-first approach to productAs PMs, of course we have a responsibility to our users — but we’re primarily responsible for advancing the goals of our business. In this post, I posit a simple framework for identifying the different strategic roles your product might play and how to prioritize, position, and measure success once you’ve identified that role.. Had a blast sharing and discussing it live for the first time. Fantastic insights from Sean & co, and great questions from the whole Lean Culture crew.

Video and transcript inside.

Many thanks to JJ Rorie for inviting yours truly to Product Voices, her excellent product management podcast. We discuss how PMs can have more impact by increasing their focus on the commercial side of the job, including some techniques you can use to improve your business focus.

Find it wherever you listen to podcasts, including Apple and Spotify, or listen directly on the Product Voices Website.

TL;DR

• Value will overwhelmingly accrue to incumbents
• Generative models (LLMs, imagery, video, etc.) will be deeply integrated into platforms (OS, browser, major social platforms)
• Foundation models will be used to train highly specialized models in various domains, while "orchestrator" models seamlessly route queries to specialized models
• Apple will drive mass consumer adoption of ML

Average PMs discover customer problems and create elegant solutions to those problems with software. Building products is what they’re best at.

Great PMs recognize that building a good product is table stakes and that the way to truly differentiate themselves is by taking a strategic approach to how customers or users find and adopt their products. Read on to find out how.

Inspired by some of my favorite blogs, and in search of my next funemployment project, I’ve decided to experiment with enabling comments on this site. After exploring a number of off-the-shelf options, I decided to build a Ruby on Rails/JavaScript-based system that meets my unique requirements for privacy and user experience.

Check out how it works (and leave a comment!)

I wrote some Python! Take a ride with me as I recount my experience writing a plugin for Lektor that dynamically generates link preview images. Super gratifying to build something fun (and a little bit novel, if I do say so myself) for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

As PMs, of course we have a responsibility to our users — but we’re primarily responsible for advancing the goals of our business. In this post, I posit a simple framework for identifying the different strategic roles your product might play and how to prioritize, position, and measure success once you’ve identified that role.

There’s a first time for everything. First kiss. First heartbreak. First job. First kid. First home. This morning, I experienced my first layoff. I was one of the 12,000 folks let go by Google.

At a previous company, we had strong feedback from sales that prospects thought our legacy, cash-cow product looked old and outdated. They were right, and those first impressions are hard to shake. We lost deals (in part) because of design.

We had to figure out how to solve the sales objection while not alienating our existing power users.

Not much has changed since I started publishing on the web in 1998. HTML written back then still works, and the most successful bloggers still earn their success not only for the quality of their writing or the design of their blogs but because they just write.

Every now and then, I get questions about this site — its design, how it’s ‘run’, etc. If you need a nudge in the right direction, here’s how I did it, and here’s what you should do, too.