storiesHow Dorra Discovered Purpose & Got A New Role at AmazonStuck in My Process & Stuck in My Role There were two key challenges I faced before Prod MBA: Firstly, in terms of my day-to-day work, our…
storiesHow Anton Went From Senior PM to The Next LevelSearching For An Adaptable Product Playbook I was already a Senior PM with what I felt was strong experience so far in my career. But I was…
storiesHow Joel Became Confident & Effective In His New RoleHow to bridge the gap to doing product properly? I was in my first product role, but quickly realised: “This isn’t how product should be…
storiesHow Richard Aligned His Org Around a Billion Dollar IdeaNo Strategy. No Focus. Before Prod MBA, even as a Head of Product I used to try to do too much: Build every feature, please every…
storiesHow Luke Built A Profitable Product in 6 WeeksStuck In A Feature Factory In the past, I have felt stuck in my comfort zone & realised I needed to learn & develop my skills as a Product…
storiesHow Antonia Became A More Confident Product LeaderWe Were Doing Product Wrong Even though I was active in the Berlin startup scene, and already in a product role by the time the Prod MBA…
stories“How Elaine Became The Kind of PM She Always Wanted to Be“What Next With My Career? I used to really lack confidence in my role. Both in terms of how to have impact, but also how to take the next…
storiesHow Tom Increased His Salary by 30% in 6 WeeksMy Career Felt Stuck. I was working in product & “innovation”, but we never actually did real innovation. Most product developments were…
career“Part 2 • How To Successfully Apply For Roles Requiring 3+/5+ Years Experience“This is Part 2/2 of our series on dramatically improving your interview success rate. You can skip Part 1, but I’d recommend catching up on…
career“Part 1 • How To Successfully Apply For Roles Requiring 3+/5+ Years Experience“In product, we would all agree that it’s best to work in a customer-centric & strategic way. Yet, when it comes to our careers, we throw…
career“Person-Product Fit & How I Got Fired As a PM”I see a lot of stupid product career advice online. Webinars on “how to deal with a toxic work environment”. Or “10 tips for managing…
career“How To Double Your Interview Success Rate & Increase Your Salary By 30% In The Process“From speaking to over 300 Product Managers & Product Owners in the last 2 years, I can confidently say: They are terrible at selling…
foundations“90% of products fail. Here’s why.”Most in the product world understand that we play a risky game. That the failure rate is high. Very high, in fact. Various studies have put…
foundations“WTF is a Product?!“We tend to think of “a product” as something digital, something with a set of features, something that helps somebody do a thing. We all…
b2bThe Surprising Differences Between B2B v. B2C Product ManagementIt’s commonly accepted that the role of a B2B Product Manager is very different from that of a B2C Product Manager. That, dealing directly…
strategyThe Problem With Product WorkAnd Why User Experience Should Only Be Called Customer Experience… If you work in product, design, tech, sales, marketing or customer…
BootstrappingBootstrapping From Zero to Profitability in 4 MonthsWhen I was planning this article, I found myself wondering: When does a business really start? Should I start counting from the day I spent…
PMFHow To Achieve Product/Market FitThe term “Product/Market Fit” is too often used as just a buzzword. It conjures up some vague idea of building a “good” product, whatever…
podcastEpisode 3: The importance of a product offer that resonatesEpisode 3 Rob’s Weird Circular Light & The Importance of A Product Offer That Resonates With Your Customer:
product management"Watch Our Lightning Decision JamWatch our LIVE Lightning Decision Jam workshop as we define the challenges around our team’s product strategy & focus on experimenting with…
product management"Watch Our Q&A SessionHow you can help your team not just survive, but thrive, during the uncertainty of 2020. Join myself & Rob Hamblen, Founder of Leap, for a…
product managementWhat Matters in Product Management“How do we make the one decision that resolves a thousand future decisions?” Every Product Manager I’ve spoken to says they are short on…
product management"Watch Now“Adapting is not just about running Remote Happy Hours & being on Slack 24/7. The new economy requires us to focus on identifying new…
strategyAre meditation apps the modern 'opiate of the masses'?Coined by Karl Marx in the 19th Century to describe the role religion played in placating the working class of the Industrial Age, it seems…
startupThe Hard Thing About BootstrappingBootstrapping a business isn’t easy. Your team need to work out not only which problem to solve without a budget, but to determine whether…
strategyStrategy Update Feb 2020A few months ago, we pivoted our core value proposition away from “remote team management” to look at whether we could build a business in…
cultureWhich Faceless Corporation Runs Prod MBA?None. We are an independent, mission-driven team & want to stay that way. We aren’t owned by some dodgy data-abusing corporation. We are…
cultureAbout Our TeamProd MBA was founded by Henry Latham, a product leader based in Berlin, with a small team of product wizards based in Germany & Croatia. We…
selfFacing My Biggest Fear In LifeLooking over the precipice All of my life I’ve been terrified of heights. Really terrified. To the point that, even aged 23, I would have to…
selfExpectation vs. GratitudeIt could be warmer. The meal could be better. That drink a little colder. My job should be better. I should be paid more. My team should be…
cultureThe Hidden Cost of Being Unmotivated At Work“The boss is coming! Quick, let’s just look at this graph for a while in a serious-looking manner.” It strikes me that being unmotivated at…
startup100 Blocks Each DayAssuming you sleep, we are all limited to around 16 hours per day, each day. That’s the amount of time we can spend in whichever way we…
leadershipAlignment, Focus & Business SuccessHow startup teams undermine their own success I’ve worked in early-stage product teams for a number of years now, and observed the different…
startupBecoming the Next Big ThingBecoming The Next Big Thing This article is not an attack on individuals companies. It is, instead, a critique of a startup culture that…
agileWhy Agile Doesn’t WorkI’ve started to try and look for a pattern in everything. Specifically, with my approach to product, I try to look out for the one thing…
agileWhy Agile Doesn't WorkI’ve started to try and look for a pattern in everything. Specifically, with my approach to product, I try to look out for the one thing…
selfWhat Really Matters in LifeWe start off believing that success equates wealth & status. That if we get just a little bit more money or that extra promotion, that our…
selfOur Decisions Determine Startup Success - or FailureSo much of our human potential is wasted. Thrown on the scrap heap. 90% of startups fail. That new feature your team worked so hard on for…
strategyThe Importance of ‘Zooming Out’How to stop focusing on the short-term & start focusing on the long-term In this article, I’m going to explore why we end up focused on…
visionHow to Make Sure You’re not Wasting the Next 5-10 Years of Your Professional LifeWhat is vision? You would think that everyone comes into working knowing what they are doing and, more importantly, why. Yet the last global…
startupWhy Your Startup is FailingInvestment, experience, an Agile product development process. None of these things matter. Using my own experience building a profitable…
bootstrapWhy Your Startup is FailingTired of being part of failed ventures? Of building products destined for failure? It may not seem like there is an alternative approach to…
agileOne Trick To Build Better Products, FasterHow to build impactful features, not just more features How many times have you come to the end of the day, or end of the week, and asked…
leadershipTeam Culture Needs to ChangeLet me start with a simple question: Does your team engender effective decision-making? Do you believe that modern work culture engenders…
leadershipOvercoming Startup Anxiety Pt.1/2Anxiety is, unfortunately, an inevitable part of the experience when building a business. The uncertainty, the infinite different outcomes…
selfLife is the outcome of your decisions.In January of last year, I left a job I absolutely hated. I broke up with my girlfriend because I didn’t see myself spending the rest of my…
cultureWhen you get life wrong.Is this for real? When have you ever seen a corporate meeting where people are really, genuinely engaged and excited to be there? The only…
bootstrapThe Startup Success FallacyStartup culture tends to posit the idea that raising funding equates success. And that one’s level of success is determined by the level of…
selfIn The Pursuit of FulfilmentI spent the first 23 years of my life in a haze. Time passed, things happened, but I never really seemed to experience it. I would set some…
designThe Origin of IdeasWhen I started out five years ago, self-taught, hacking my way into User Experience Design, I somewhat arrogantly thought I was special…
selfTime is tickingDeath is rarely acknowledged. Even the word “death” is somewhat terrifying & taboo. Even yesterday, when preparing this article in my…
designAll Humans Are Motivated By Three ThingsAt the core of every thought & every action lie three motives: to seek pleasure and avoid pain; to seek hope and avoid fear; to seek social…
bootstrapWhy We Won’t Take InvestmentWe at Scribe had never spoken about investment as a team, despite working on Scribe, our fledgling business, for 3 months. Despite still…
product managementWhy Essentialism is EssentialEssentialism has been such a powerful concept for me that I even decided to get my first ever tattoo based on it’s central tenet: To only…
cultureThis Makes Company Culture GreatIt’s not the ping pong table. It’s not the free beers on Friday. It’s not the supposed “flat hierarchy”. It is, in fact, nothing tangible…
successHow we can re-think successImagine a society where ‘success’ was re-defined. Caring for your elderly parents or your children would mean being successful. Teaching…
selfMoney is TimeWe think of money as merely something that allows us to acquire something else. We have some money, we spend it, we get something in return…
selfWhen Motivation Evades YouI started writing out of unhappiness. From a hatred for a job I was in that lacked purpose, that took away my autonomy, that treated…
startupWaiting For Lightning To StrikeWhen we hear stories of success, whether business or personal, it’s easier to say there’s this one big moment. A flash of inspiration. A…
leadershipShould the client really come first?A client sends in a feature request. The business team rush to make it happen & force it upon the product team. “This is the most important…
selfWhy You Feel So LonelyDecades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin lamented that English settlers were constantly fleeing over to the Indians-but…
selfJournalingI was sat at my computer, on a grey November afternoon, watching the rain outside pelt against the window & the light gradually fade from…
designOne Thing Critical to Success as a DesignerLife zoomed in We spend so much of our lives looking at the granular, fine print of things that we tend to miss the bigger picture. We’ll…
leadershipOne Key Skill We Are Never TaughtI step out into the street of sunny Buenos Aires, pretty intimidated by being in South America for the first time in my life. As such, I…
visionWhat is freedom for you?“This verse in one of Alice in Chains’ most haunting songs captures the essence of the Stoic battle: “And yet I find And yet I find…
cultureWhy We Don’t Do User TestingIf you work in Product Design, you would really have to have been living under a rock for the last 10 years to not have heard of the…
selfWhy I JournalJournaling has become somewhat of a compulsion in my life. I journal not because I want to, but because I must. The words that flow out of…
selfWhy do we do all this self-improvement stuff?Why do we find ourselves going to bed at 9.30pm on a Friday night when others are out drinking & having fun? Or jumping in a cold shower…
randomThe Return of the PolymathUntil the industrial revolution, the idea of naming a polymath a polymath would have seemed a little odd. Da Vinci If you were educated, you…
strategyMoving Fast Whilst Heading In The Right DirectionIf you work in a startup, you may be familiar with that slight sense of unease that accompanies you when working on a product. That muffled…
leadershipWhat We Can Learn From LeopardsThe natural world shows us countless examples of the need for patience. Look at the way a leopard stalks its prey. It moves ever nearer…
strategyYour logo doesn’t mean shit.Your logo doesn’t mean shit. Your brand does. Above is a photo of a load of famous brands. All of them using Helvetica. Most of them pretty…
product managementFear of LaunchWhy Most Products Fail We create a business plan, discuss the competition, meticulously plan our non-existent financial projections for the…
cultureAre you the problem? Or is it your company?The vast majority of us spend our days just doing stuff by rote. A task comes across our desk, we follow the specs, then hand it on. Because…
ethicsWhen is it OK to manipulate people?With the topic of ethical design, we find ourselves at a crossroads. Clearly, methods deployed against users to encourage addiction to…
visionWhat value should you create for the world?When you are ambitious, it’s really hard to settle on one thing to impact. We want to impact everything, but as a result end up impacting…
selfHow Not To Make Progress Towards Life GoalsTaking the metaphorical plunge When I think back to the times I’ve made significant changes in my life, they can almost always be identified…
leadershipYou know what really pisses me off?Yesterday I had a bit of a dwell. One of those thinking-about-things-in-the-past-that-pissed-you-off-but-are-completely-irrelevant-now…
strategyWhy product teams failWhen I first started working in startups I was the design world’s equivalent of John the Baptist. I really f**king loved the whole thing…
leadershipSociety’s Problem With PatienceThere has been such a radical shift in human behaviour since the advent of the digital age that we seem to have forgotten one of humanity’s…
designQuestions Constitute a Good Design ProcessThere are already some great articles out there exploring Design Processes. Joanna Ngai’s short 4-step article on the subject is a great…
designThe Problem With Empathy“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” — Anaïs Nin Ask any UX Designer about the importance of empathy in UX & I’m sure…
ethicsWhy Social Media Makes you SadAn insidious force has crept into our lives over the last 10 years. It is made worse by the fact that it is rarely questioned & has rapidly…
product managementLearn to prioritiseSometimes the small things are the big things Everyone struggles with prioritisation, whether in their work or home life. We have a…
leadershipSomething to keep your ego in checkAs a society, we shy away from death. Even the word is a bit alarming. It’s just not talked about. People find it uncomfortable. Yet I’ve…
strategyThe Competition In Product Design“The Competition.” Just the word itself conjures up an image in the mind of intimidating, omnipresent, dark forces, lacking any clear form…
leadershipChoose One Thing To ChangeThe biggest problem I find myself facing is choice. We are so used to living in a society over-whelmed by choice that when it comes to…
visionIs this success?We tend to accept a definition of success loosely based around financial gain & social status. Being a wealthy finance executive, or a…
product managementThe Art of Being BusyDifferentiating Urgency & Importance The frustrating reality of work is that most of what you do is a complete waste of time. Even…
selfDon’t Make ResolutionsYesterday many people across the Western world will have started some sort of self-imposed limitation. Most likely an attempt to stop…
cultureExperience is not arbitraryApplying for a job usually requires 2 years experience, 5+ years experience. What an arbitrary way to measure the divergent & complex…
strategyStop Thinking Short-TermInvestment: “An act of devoting time, effort, or energy to a particular undertaking with the expectation of a worthwhile result.” “ A thing…
leadershipStepping upThe Ground Floor It’s hard to judge when you are are doing a good job and when you are not. When you are mediocre, or when you are excelling…
randomOn being differentEveryone has their quirks. Their weird habits. Their weird interests. Most tend to hide them, somewhat ashamed of admitting to themselves…
cultureThe Lies & Stories That Determine Our LivesLies. Lies. Lies. Lies are all around us. We tell ourselves lies all the time. They form the beliefs we internalise & therefore guide our…
selfHow to stop people stealing your timeIt’s not just at work that you find yourself led astray. You sort of expect it there. You watch out for it. Maybe your boss asks you to stay…
leadershipWhat’s your story?Anyone starting a company knows — or at least should know — the power of story-telling. A product — let’s say an ice cream brand — could…
ethics‘Ethical Design’ is a Dangerous TermA caveat: Concepts such as freedom, equality & justice are very loaded terms. They cannot — nor should they —be accepted as definitive…
selfThe GeniusCompanies aren’t run by Steve Jobs-type visionaries. Many people may think they are Jobs reincarnate, living up to the over-exaggerated…
leadershipFocus on the foundationsWe tend to focus on the small things & ignore the big things. When building a product, we skip over the problem in our excitement to build a…
randomAvoiding Graduate Herd MentalityEveryone seems to just end up going through graduate programmes. A large amount of students end up going to the one or two firms that…
selfMornings Can Make Or Break Your DayMornings determine how you spend your day. How you spend your day determines how you spend your life. So mornings are important. In Tools of…
selfLittle lies we tell ourselvesWe set ourselves arbitrary goals. We make blanket statements that will determine the direction of the next few years of our life. We try to…
leadershipHabits Form the Foundations of Business SuccessYou can bring in new leadership to radically transform a company. Pay a consultancy firm millions to point out flaws you already see. Put…
selfWhy You Need Goals & Why They Are IrrelevantIf you want to live an extraordinary life, you must have a big, clear goal in mind. Something that gets you out of bed every morning…
startupWriting the MiddleA Promise to Yourself Quite frankly, it’s a fucking joke — laughable even — the amount of times I’ve set some big, grandiose goal at the…
leadershipFear & doing hard thingsI look around me & see people just going through the motions. It is action by rote, rather than by creating something new. In a new startup…
leadershipStart Your Day with a Question to Start Changing your LifeWhat is the most important thing to you right now? This question should be an integral part of your morning routine. Once you’re able to…
leadershipYour Inner Critic & Ever-Present FearHow accepting self-doubt is the only solution *One evening Milarepa returned to his cave after gathering firewood, only to find it filled…
leadershipStanding up for yourselfThere are times in life where you have to make hard decisions. Your goals come into conflict with someone else & you find yourself…
cultureSeeing things for what they areIt’s easy to be naïve; to accept what is said to you at face value, rather than probing the ulterior motives. It makes it easier to deal…
leadershipWhy are we so apathetic towards life?Have we moved into a new stage of ‘millennial’ history after the Trump/Brexit results? Castigated for our apathy towards life, work…
leadershipYou have something remarkable to say.Remarkable: ‘Worthy of attention; striking;’ Stumbling upon writing I started journaling out of a desire to clarify my thoughts; to get…
cultureLying Creates a Toxic Work CultureWhat to do about it Yesterday I realised for the first time that my boss had lied to me. Coincidentally, I had just finished listening to…
cultureDoes anyone actually believe this crap?No-one believes in the vision, but they are too afraid to admit it. When I walk into my office, I get the feeling that everyone is in on one…
product managementReading Changes Lives.… and 11 books that have changed my life Formal education wears most people into the ground. When they think education, reading, learning…
leadershipUrgency is key to successDiscover that burning need you can’t ignore Why ‘need’, not ‘want’ is the key to success “Desire is the starting point of all achievement…
randomTurning travel into a quest & on finding joy & wisdom on the roadWe see the same quotes dotted around a hostel, a Facebook group or generic travel websites. They leave us in wonder at the depths, the…
leadershipHow to Avoid Failure.Early success came easily. A few months into my first start-up & we had already had an App Store feature under ‘Best New Apps’, 15k…
leadershipA Voice from the Arena to Motivate Change & Stop the Excuses.I was listening to a podcast yesterday where Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post & Thrive Global, discussed the influence the…
leadershipUnfortunately no-one cares.We complain about everything. You can’t find the right job. Your boss doesn’t respect you. Learning a new language is too hard. You don’t…
leadershipWhen actions don’t follow thought.How fear prevents action It’s presumptuous to think that everyone knows what they want; that they are able to clearly envision living — or…
startupSunday BluesThat Sunday feeling won’t go unless you change. For the first time in my life, I get it. I had spent a lovely weekend in London catching up…
leadershipA Productive Life is a Happy Life.What is productivity? Why is it important? Flow 5 Actionable Steps to Achieve Flow Your company “I’m so busy right now, I’ve got -like- a…
leadershipHow Only a Verbal Punch in the Face Can Motivate You to ChangeI am finally going to use the word. It’s been 3 months in the making & a few days since it has crystallised in my mind. I feel like I need…