Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:19:57 · Lenny Rachitsky, Oji Udezue
[00:19:57] S1: Are you happy you're not working on Twitter anymore? [00:20:00] S0: I am ecstatic. I'm ecstatic. It seems it seems like such a such a shit show. You know, no shade on anything or anyone, like, purposely, but, you know, look. What's happening is evident, so I don't think I have much to say about that. [00:20:18] S1: Yeah. What a wild ride over there. [00:20:20] S0: Mhmm. [00:20:20] S1: Zooming out on the frameworks question, when I asked you ahead of our chat about what frameworks you love and anything you think would be interesting to share, you had a really interesting response. And so I'd love for you to just share your perspective on frameworks broadly.
00:20:34 · Oji Udezue
[00:20:34] S0: Yeah. Look, two things simultaneously. One is I actually... I like frameworks. What what... The the way that I try to express them is mental models. Right? Because the essence of a framework and mental model is that it is a shortcut. It packages some dense thinking into a way for you to approach a problem or to approach an opinion and so on and so forth. So I do collect them. But I think that what's important actually in product management, is to have the ability to understand the fundamentals or the empirical relationship that constructs the framework in the first place. In math, you would call it like being able to derive the equation. And the reason that's important is because there's so much uncertainty in what we do. Like, product management isn't a science. In fact, programming isn't even a science, really, because if it was, we'd treat it differently. So the art of building, say, a software company that is profitable is not scientific. There's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of unknowns, there's timing issues. So I guess while I love mental models, while I love frameworks, what I want people who listen to me and maybe listen to you to understand is you have to go deeper because as situations change, like, you know, as an investor and advisor to startups, I advise differently if you are just starting, if you're in the middle, and if you're scaling. Right? In the book that I'm writing on product, I actually make that distinction a lot in the book, which is which stage are you? Because then the thing that applies to you is different. If you understand the fundamentals, you'll be able to use frameworks in a much more productive way because you'll adapt it to your stage, you'll adapt it to the problem. And I think that's really important. I see lots of people using frameworks very blindly, and I think that's harmful to them and harmful to their businesses.
00:22:31 · Lenny Rachitsky
[00:22:31] S1: What a great segue to where I wanted to take us next, which is around the book that you're writing, which is my understanding is it's product management for product led growth. And I'm on your wait list to find out when it's out. And I saw that the other day you asked people for their advice on what to call the book. Do you have any favorites at this point and what you might title it?
00:22:50 · Oji Udezue
[00:22:50] S0: Well, first of all, like, there are two things happening with the book. One is I believe PLG is... I have a... Maybe a different definition of PLG, but I think the way that we are basically adapting products to the consumer or to the business professional and using the product itself to sell the value proposition is really key to transitioning from what we used to do twenty years ago to today. Basically, think even enterprise companies will tend towards a consumer type product management over the next decade than the other way around. That's my bet. And so let's call that PLG just writ large. And also, think product management is set for growth. So, obviously, that's good for you, Lenny, because everyone needs to know how to do this. It's the integrative art within building software, and software is leading the world. The book, I want to get very practical, what matters about doing those two things well. And the best titles coming up are... My original title was Building Rocket Ships. So it's like, how do you think through all the different things you need to build a really successful software company? Think about the practice, think about the business, meld those two things together. So a lot of people love that title. Well, there's a huge variation in submissions. So I think we're gonna do that one more time and offer more options before we, we nail down the title of the book. So till TBD.
00:24:22 · Lenny Rachitsky
[00:24:22] S1: Cool. Alright. I'm excited to see where you land. So let's just spend some time on PLG. I feel like this is your bread and butter as a product leader. You've worked at some of the most successful PLG companies, and I think you have some of the most unique perspectives on what works and doesn't work. And I saw you shared a preview of what you're gonna be sharing the book. And so there's a few things there that I thought were really interesting that I haven't seen other places when it comes to PLG, so I was just gonna dig into it. Very. Absolutely. The first is this, framing that you had for where to start and how to focus with your PLG problem, and you described it as starting with a sharp problem. Can you talk about what that means?
00:24:59 · Oji Udezue
[00:24:59] S0: Yeah. So I'm trying to connect dots. The sharp problem is a little bit of that whole quadrant framework, which is what problem are you gonna work on? I think that problems have predictive power of success if you actually solve the problem. And this is different from I have an idea. Yeah? I think that a lot of innovation can come from inspiration, or the best inspiration comes from understanding customers and their problems. So my advice to founders is pick a problem that is materially felt by your customers. Pain points that steal their time, their energy, their money, their focus, their inability to afford their leisure. If you can solve those kinds of problems, and look, I know that it's broad, because it requires insight, you know, the best founders often are people who felt a problem, understand it, understand that it's really difficult, and understand that there may be like five, 10, 20,000,000,000 people who feel it, and they don't wanna solve that problem. Versus I feel a problem, but only a 100,000 people care, in which case maybe, it's not that intense anyway, unless you can charge them thousands and thousands of dollars. So pick those kinds of problems. If you if you have the narrative in your head that if you really solve this, people will pony up. That's what I ask people to find. Too many of us just have a sharp idea. Look. I've built a startup on a non sharp problem, and I I I knew how it felt. But I also know working in companies that are solving sharp problems, how it feels is a huge tailwind to do that. In fact, when you work on sharp problems, it's hard to fail because you can make mistakes and the customer's obsession will carry you. But if you work on something that doesn't have a sharp problem, mistakes can kill you because essentially you're having to pay a lot for marketing, you're having to pay a lot for word-of-mouth. People, when they get poor, they don't care about it, like recessions.