Trust The Trenches

Advisors don't build your product. Your team does.

Startups often chase external wisdom: big-name advisors, mentors or consultants. Feels smart. Feels strategic. But what gets ignored is the gold sitting right inside the company: the frontline team. The people closest to the work. The ones who spot real problems before they hit dashboards.

Most companies skip this step. They hire an advisor to fix product strategy, while the product team quietly shakes their heads. They run a culture workshop, while the team whispers: “We've been saying this for months”

The fix isn't more voices. It's better loops.

Build internal insight loops before you chase external ones. Create a rhythm of feedback, reflection and iteration...led by the people doing the work. Document the pain points. Invite challenge. Turn silence into signal. Once that's running strong, then (and only then) bring in outside help to sharpen, not replace, your instincts.

Your team knows more than your boardroom. Listen there first.

Toxicity Isn't Leadership

Brilliance doesn't excuse bad behaviour.

Some leaders get away with everything. They shout. Interrupt. Get angry. Dismiss. Their results or tenure buy them silence. People tiptoe around them. Their tantrums get labelled “passion”. But under the surface, the team is hurting. The fear is real. Ideas shrink. Collaboration dies. Turnover spikes. The cost isn't loud. It's quiet...and compounding.

And here's the lie: “We need them”.

No, you don't.

You're just scared of the gap they'll leave. But that gap creates space for healthier leadership, for calmer thinking, for people who can deliver and respect others. High performance doesn't have to come wrapped in chaos. The best leaders know when to push, when to listen and when to shut up.

It's not enough to be brilliant. You have to be someone others want to follow.

Culture gets built by who you promote and protect. Letting toxic behaviour slide, just because someone's talented, tells the whole team one thing: this behaviour is ok. And that message spreads. Fast.

So stop making excuses for bullies. If they can't lead with discipline, they don't get to lead at all.

Is strategy supposed to be difficult to understand?

Bad strategy documents aren't your fault.

You join a new team. You're handed a 30-pager full of buzzwords, abstract goals and empty phrases. You read it. You reread it. Still lost.

It feels like you're the problem. You're not. The document is.

Most strategy docs aren't written to be understood. They're written to impress. Or to tick a box. They sprawl with vague visions and empty frameworks, then expect alignment to magically follow.

But the job of a strategy isn't to sound smart.

📘 The job of a strategy is to create clarity. Direction. Focus. And what to ignore.

A good strategy is short and sharp. Like a pitch. You should be able to explain it in 30 seconds. Use SCQA if you need help: Situation, Complication, Question, Answer.

If you're a Product Manager, that's your job. Not just writing the doc. Shaping the strategy. Testing it. Pressure-proofing it with your team and execs.

So if you're staring at a bloated, broken strategy, don't wait for permission.

Tear it apart. Make it clearer. Make it tighter. Make it usable.

Alignment doesn't come from reading. It comes from understanding.

No Place to Hide

AI won't replace Product Managers. But it will expose the ones who never should've had the job.

PMs who survive on vibe, templates and Jira tickets are already being outpaced. AI does what they do. But faster, cheaper and with better spelling.

AI is forcing PMs to evolve from backlog babysitters into strategic operators.

No more hiding behind status updates or pretending roadmapping is vision. AI writes specs. It cleans up research notes. It summarises meetings and drafts Jira tickets before the devs have logged off. If that's your whole job, start sweating.

But if you're the kind of PM who shapes bets, sharpens focus and asks better questions -you're not replaceable. You're rare.

Only sharp PMs know which bets to place, when to double down and when to walk away.

AI won't take your job. But a better PM using AI will.

PMF doesn't exist

Product-market fit doesn't exist.

It's a myth we tell ourselves to feel like we're on the right track.

“Agile” suffered the same fate (at least there's the agile manifesto that exists). Started as a working philosophy, ended up a bingo word. Everyone says they have PMF. No one can show you where it lives. They just point to a vibe. Some traction. A few good months. A round that closed fast.

“We've got it!”
Based on what? Revenue spikes? Retention curves? Activation rates? NPS? Shorter sales cycles? Word of mouth? A gut feel after a good week? A bit of everything and nothing concrete?

The phrase has become a catch-all. Founders claim it when growth feels easier than usual. Investors expect it before writing a check. But there's no standard. No scoreboard. Every product is different. Every market reacts in its own way.

What looks like PMF for one company might be a dead end for another.

Product-market fit isn't something you find. It's something you feel.

And sometimes, you just hope you're right.

Feedback Timing

Feedback delayed is feedback diluted.

After two weeks, the lesson goes cold. Details fade. Emotions disappear. What could've been a clear moment becomes a blur.

You try to explain what went wrong. Or what went right. But the context's gone. The person nods but doesn't feel it. They can't replay the moment in their head. The energy's moved on.

Feedback works when it's fast.
“In that meeting just now…” hits different than “Remember that thing two weeks ago?” One feels sharp. The other feels vague. Fresh feedback still has signal in it. Wait too long, and all you're left with is noise.

Don't hold it back. Say “great job” when the win is fresh.

If something was worth noticing, it's worth saying. Right now. Say it while the moment's still alive.

Make It Clear

Product Managers wait for clarity that never arrives.

They expect the strategy doc to have the answers. But nothing lands. Just more PowerPoint slides.

Because the higher up you go, the blurrier it gets. Goals get loftier. Language gets vaguer. No one wants to be wrong. So they delay, they decorate confusion with buzzwords. It feels smart but it isn't clear.

The best Product Managers don't wait. They start shaping. They turn fuzzy goals into concrete next steps. They don't chase alignment. They chase decisions. ​They poke holes (even when it creates discomfort). They write the draft no one asked for. They map the fog, not run from it.

Because anyone can follow a plan. But great Product Managers can make one. They stop asking “What's the direction?” and start saying “Here's what I'm seeing - poke holes in it”

Takeaways: From Jira Junkies to Profit Prophets

📘 Most product teams don't understand revenue. They know user needs, but not what closes a deal. They talk to customers, but rarely prospects. That's a big gap. Product decisions often ignore willingness to pay, sales pressure, and retention blockers - because they're seen as “someone else's job.”
📘 They moved from slow waterfall to fast Agile. But fast doesn't mean right. Shipping the wrong thing quickly just piles up tech debt and wastes money... read more

Quiet Leadership

Change doesn't come from a reorg or a new title on a slide.

It comes from the person who says, “This isn't good enough,” and then does something about it. Quietly. Consistently. Without waiting for permission. That's what standards are - choices made over and over, even when they're inconvenient, invisible, or unpopular.

The real power isn't in setting high standards. It's in holding them when no one's watching. When shortcuts are easier. When mediocrity is the norm. That's where most people cave. They look around, see no one else pushing, and assume it's not worth the fight.

But it is.

Every time someone sticks to their standard, it makes space for someone else to do the same. Not with big declarations, but with small acts of defiance against the average.

The more people who hold the line, the easier it becomes to draw a new one. Holding the line isn't easy - but a product management coach can support you in leading with consistency.

Stop Taking Orders. Start Shaping Work

Some tech teams think their job starts when the requirements arrive.

But that mindset turns them into delivery machines - waiting for Jira tickets like orders at a café. The real value isn't in ticking off tasks. It's in shaping them. Working with product managers, not for them.

Because PMs aren't there to write task lists. They're commercial thinkers. They're shaping strategy, pushing customer insight, and holding the big picture. They don't need followers. They need partners.

Do less: waiting for answers.
Do more: collaborating to understand the “why.”

That's how you build better products - and better teams.

Takeaways: Superhuman's secret to success

📘 The early Superhuman team did something most founders would find wild: they ignored most customer feedback. Not because it wasn't useful - but because most users weren't the right users. To find product-market fit, you need to make something some people really love. Not something everyone just kind of likes. This means identifying your "very disappointed" cohort - the people who would be devastated if your product disappeared - and doubling dow... read more

Validation Comes After Launch

You can't validate a product with opinions.
People love to be nice. They'll tell you what you want to hear. “I'd buy that.” “Sounds awesome.” “I'd totally use it.” They're not lying to be cruel. They're trying to be supportive. But support doesn't equal commitment.
The second you ask for money, everything changes.
That's the gap most early teams fall into. They build confidence through conversation, then get blindsided when no one converts. The t... read more

Increasing Capacity by 37signals

📘 You don't need more people to do more work. Most teams slow down as they grow. Speed and capacity come from clarity, cohesion, and trust - not headcount. A smaller, sharper team gets more done with less.
📘 37signals runs 4 SaaS products with 60 people. Not long ago, they were at 80, and everything moved slower. Managing a larger team created more overhead, more layers, more drag. Back at 60, they're shipping more than ever. Two new products are... read more

Bad Leadership Sucks!

You see the promises fall flat.

You watch them dodge decisions, fumble delegation and ignore the weight of a frustrated team.

It feels like yelling into a void.

But you still show up. Not for them - for the people beside you. You lift the work with your peers. You raise the bar. You protect the standard. You become the person who cares when no one else does. Even with a ceiling pressed down on your growth, your pride, your pay - you stay. You find meaning in the work itself. Because the work matters.

But ceilings don't stay soft forever. Sometimes they turn to concrete.

The team starts shrinking from bold to bitter. Feedback goes quiet. Energy fades. You feel it in your bones: you're no longer growing, just grinding.

That's when the question hits - how long do I keep pushing when it's clear no one's listening?

As I've said before: “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.”
That applies to toxic culture. But it also applies to dead-end leadership.

So if your ideas can't rise, if your potential gets capped, if staying means shrinking.

There's only one move left.

Leave. Before they forget what you're capable of. Before you do.

Ditch Annual Reviews

Yearly performance reviews aren't good. You have probably seen neglected and outdated goals in performance reviews in your career. They become irrelevant pretty quickly. Worse, they do more harm than good.

The best teams ditch the annual review cycle. Instead, they focus on:

• Continuous feedback
• Small, actionable coaching
• Growth over grades
• Space for trial, error and mastery

Accountability

Messy teams don't mean broken teams.

They're just growing. Growth kicks off the “storming” phase - overlaps, confusion, delays. Everyone's working hard, but everything feels slow.

That's not a motivation problem. It's an ownership problem.

When no one's clearly accountable, things fall between the cracks. Work stalls. Friction builds. Blame starts to creep in. But assign clear ownership - name, scope, outcome - and everything changes. Now someone's driving. Now someone's finishing.

Ownership creates motion. Shared responsibility sounds nice, but it rarely works. When everyone owns something, no one owns anything.

So make it visible. Write it down. Who owns what. Why it matters. When it's due.

That's how work moves forward. Not with good intentions. With clear accountability.

Make Feedback Obvious

People think they're not getting feedback.

But they are - they just don't recognise it.

A simple way to fix this? Make it obvious. Instead of letting feedback blend into daily conversations, label it: “Here's some feedback for you.”

That small shift makes a big difference.

From draft to finished

The point isn't to get it right. It's to get it moving. You shape, share, and sharpen through feedback. That's how the rough idea turns into something worth showing.
Start with a mess. End with a star.

Feedback That Builds

Feedback lands best when the walls are down.

But too often, it does the opposite. It raises shields. Because even when intentions are good, the words feel sharp. The tone feels off. And the brain - wired for survival, not nuance - reads threat where you meant support.

It doesn't matter how thoughtful or constructive the feedback is. If the other person is in defence mode, they won't hear a word of it. They'll hear judgment. They'll hear risk. They'll hear “you're not good enough.” That's why intention isn't enough. Clarity is what cuts through.

So be clear.

​Not in a vague, corporate tone. In plain language. “You're doing well. I want to help you do even better.” Or, “This is something I wish someone told me earlier in my career - I think it might help.” You're not correcting.

Feedback delivered too late becomes irrelevant or awkward. Deliver it while the moment's fresh and the actions are remembered. But always with context. Always with care.

Because the goal of feedback isn't to win an argument. It's to build someone up without them feeling torn down.

If you're trying to improve how feedback lands, a product management coach can help you practise framing it in a way that actually builds trust.

Frame it right, and feedback becomes a shield. Not a weapon.

The Tech Debt Spiral

Like a snowball rolling downhill, technology debt simply gets bigger.

Cutting corners and patching things up work for a while. But eventually the codebase becomes a mess. Features take longer to build, and bugs pile up. The team becomes nervous about making changes. This triggers leadership demands speed, trapping everyone in a difficult cycle to break.