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The best resources on product wisdom

www.leahtharin.com

The best resources on product wisdom

Let me learn you something...

Leah Tharin
Jan 20
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The best resources on product wisdom

www.leahtharin.com

Whether you are a junior or senior product manager access to books and wisdom is usually not the problem. But deciding what to spend your time on seems to be an incredibly difficult endeavor.

People recommend books over books, methodologies, courses, and blogs easily but which ones are the right ones?

Let’s look at a few examples:

  • Product-Led Growth

  • Beyond basic “product” and “growth” knowledge

  • Leadership & Communication

  • Time Management

  • Org and Product Scaling

  • Jobs to be Done / Engagement - Understanding Why

You can either dig in my curated knowledge database or keep reading for a smaller, more focussed list:

External Link to Notion Page

The problem is that most recommendations are what's important to whoever is recommending them, every product manager has different challenges, aspirations to grow, and life circumstances so a well-meant recommendation can easily turn out into a perceived waste of time as it doesn't line up.

Let’s go:

Beyond basic “product” and “growth” knowledge

I’m starting with this because it’s the most custom advice here aside from books. Don’t sleep on any of these.

Reforge.com

Reforge is an incredible resource for any product manager in tech, it's more geared for associate / senior product managers I would say and the admission price is quite hefty (ask your company to finance it), but if you get a chance and want to work on your skills in a more course based structure this is the motherload. I went through about 5 of their programs and I can't say anything bad about any of them. They also feature free articles all over and I highly recommend checking those out as well.

Elena Verna
and her

Elena's Growth Scoop

Anything and everything about Growth. B2B base flavor with PLG sprinkles. Occasional extra satire topping.
By Elena Verna
Image alt

Elena is a powerhouse when it comes to operative product-led and growth topics. She is on point and the presented frameworks are built on actual experience.

She finally started her own substack and you would be a fool to not go there RIGHT now.

Stage 2 Capital Blog

Stage 2 Capital is a fantastic source of really advanced sales, CRO, CMO, and scaling topics. It’s absolutely astounding how much I learned from them over the years. If you look at who’s behind it you also understand why.

I’m a passionate learner and proponent of anything Hubspot did in the past 5 years and their former CRO, Mark Roberge is part of it. An absolute must-read if you want to do deep dives on Sales in a PLG environment

Time Management

4000 Weeks - Oliver Burkeman

Four Thousand Weeks

If you feel overwhelmed by the 20 things that you didn't get done because your superiors and everyone around you just want too much and you feel constantly that your days are too short and you struggle to make compromises at the cost of your work-life balance - this is the book for you.

It's one of my absolute favorites and I recommend it to literally everyone. A more tongue-in-cheek description I usually employ is "How to fail at the right things." Incredibly insightful.

Learning how to strategically disappoint people.

Team of Teams - General Stanley McCrystal

Team of Teams von General Stanley McChrystal, David Silverman, Tantum  Collins, Chris Fussell. eBooks | Orell Füssli

One of the clearest and most compelling books on organizations.

McChrystal clearly explains why our organizations based on hierarchy and directive control are failing and how to do it right.

An absolute necessity for anyone interested in org design and org efficiency. Personal Favourite of mine.

Understanding "Why" - Jobs to be done

There is a surprising amount of product managers I know who focus on solutions rather than understanding the problems behind their users. Understanding the Jobs-to-be-done is a very approachable framework that helps you achieve just that. Moving away from the "how do I build this" to understanding "why do I build this" is an important first step to excellence.

When Coffee & Kale Compete - Alan Klement

You can download this one for free as a PDF, it's one of the best introductions to the JTBD framework making you understand what motivates people to do what they do. It essentially helps you to create products that fit your customer’s problems much better.

The Jobs To Be Done Playbook - Jim Kalbach

I would recommend this book as a follow-up as it's more practical rather than just explaining what JTBD is and it shows practical methods to put into action what you learned before

Game Thinking - Amy Jo Kim

This is another angle to understand why people do what they do. The book tries to answer the question of how market-leading products are born. Why do people stick with things that help them get better at the stuff they care about? It's very easy to read and quite insightful as Amy draws from her experience when creating "The Sims" "Rock Band" and "Ultima Online"

Leadership & Communication

Radical Candor - Kim Scott

How to keep an open culture of discussion that fosters and encourages honest and direct feedback while also showing care. If you don't manage to lead by example and enable people to criticize you they won't return the favor. This book to me should be standard literature for anyone that aspires to or is in a leadership position. Must read for any level of product manager.

Scaling your product/organization

Crossing the Chasm by Geffrey A. Moore

If you want to conquer large markets you better understand the dynamics between early adopters to the early majority. A classic and in my opinion a table stake to understanding what landing and expanding into a major market really means.

Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais

I’m not aware of a better book to actually explain how teams should be structured within each other and what the foundation is of a successful team pattern. If you ever want to scale and build organizations this is a must-read.
Their follow-up work addresses the changes in a remote team environment.

Product-led Growth

I wrote my own guide on Product-led Growth because I wasn’t satisfied with the ones that are out there. It contains a complete and actionable explanation on what this important market trend is about. Check it out here:

Leah’s ProducTea
Leah's Product-led Growth Guide
Let’s get you kickstarted on product-led growth. The following material is officially included in an MBA Curriculum at Young Brigham University. It is part of a bigger series covering all company stages. Hi, my name is Leah Tharin and this is my Substack: hot takes on product-led growth/sales and organizational scaling…
Read more
4 months ago · 92 likes · 4 comments · Leah Tharin

General Business Knowledge

Valuation - McKinsey

Amazon.com: Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies (Wiley  Finance): 9781119610885: McKinsey & Company Inc., Koller, Tim, Goedhart,  Marc, Wessels, David: Books

If I had one insecurity then it was about how companies work on the financial side. It’s a big brick but definitely worth it if you feel like completely overdoing it.
Highly recommended.

7 Powers - Hamilton Helmer

7 Powers

While this book is a bit more high-level and looks at how to make a company more valuable there are important insights for product managers as well that would like to understand more about the business world and what makes a company successful. I would recommend this to more senior product managers though as it requires some experience on the topic. It offers a good framework in which to understand the dynamics of business/products and how they influence each other.

You made it! Now you an become even smarter and help me make myself smarter! Subscribe for free for 1 x week insights!

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The best resources on product wisdom

www.leahtharin.com
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Elena Verna
Writes Elena's Growth Scoop
Mar 4Liked by Leah Tharin

Thank you for featuring me ❤️

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