I help companies build 0-1 products | Product @providertrust, formerly @vumchealth
South Carolina 🇺🇸
Joined August 2009
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PMs have to think on three horizons
1. What are we building and shipping right now?
2. What do we need to build and ship to continue to grow?
3. What market drivers do we need to research and understand to develop our product strategy?
How do you prioritize each horizon?
A great way to respond to feedback that’s been all over the post week.
Cursor 2.3 is starting to roll out!
We’ve spent the past two weeks fixing bugs and making reliability improvements based on your feedback.
I’m so proud of our team for sprinting to make this our best release yet. We’ll be rolling 2.3 out over the week to ensure there are no regressions during your holiday coding.
I also wanted to shout out @theo, who had a rough experience with Cursor and was kind enough to stop by our office and give the team a ton of feedback on how we can make the product better (including helpful reproductions of issues from their team). There are a number of bugs in this release, specifically around worktrees and plan mode, that were fixed thanks to him. Thank you!
There’s also been feedback on layouts and the default panes in Cursor across X and Reddit in the past week. We’ve been digging in and listening, and I hope you’ll love where we’ve landed.
It’s always been slightly annoying if you’re using Cursor with 3+ different windows open for different repos. I was talking to @schickling about this last month, and we wanted a way to better hop between different workspaces. I still think there’s more we can do here, but I really like the new Command+Option+Tab switcher to move between layouts and workspaces (thank you @JasonBud!).
Since I use Command+Tab on macOS all the time, this feels very familiar. Especially when defining custom layouts like in the video below to keep my terminal always open. We’d love your feedback as we keep working to make Cursor more extensible and customizable.
Another small but nice thing: we heard your feedback that it's frustrating to have releases rolled out before the changelog is live, so we made sure the 2.3 changelog was posted before you saw the update button.
Speaking of the update button, while it's great we're getting updates out frequently... I also agree it can be annoying to see the update banner every time you open Cursor. We've made it so this banner will show less frequently 🙏
Happy holidays everyone!
Best threads on AI + product
If you’ve forwarded the Shopify ai memo to your team but don’t know what to do next, here are a few specific things you can do to generate ai momentum in an org that’s not there yet:
- simplify buying: get infosec and finance to give you a budget and fast tracked approval process today
- create your building-w-ai channel for sharing wins, fails, and asking for new tools
- create slack emojis for devin, cursor, Claude, ChatGPT and slam them anytime a workstream uses or needs AI
- tap a single engineer to be in charge of experimentation, adoption, and driving usage of tools
- connect your team to a peer company that’s a little ahead of them on AI for inspo and info
- ask “where is the prototype?” when given docs or figmas
- add “prompt”, “prototype link”, “run link” sections to your document templates
- run an exec training and half day hackathon
- run quarterly all company hackathons
- every time a doc is added to a specific folder, zap a AI generated summary to a slack channel
- headcount request form now has “this role has already been automated partially by…” section
- yes allow coding copilots during eng interviews but a rubric for evaluating them well
- AI fluency in career ladders and levels
- identify toil, solve it with AI. Don’t threaten the fun parts of jobs, take away the painful grind
- hire junior folks that don’t know better
Tony Threatt retweeted
If you’ve forwarded the Shopify ai memo to your team but don’t know what to do next, here are a few specific things you can do to generate ai momentum in an org that’s not there yet:
- simplify buying: get infosec and finance to give you a budget and fast tracked approval process today
- create your building-w-ai channel for sharing wins, fails, and asking for new tools
- create slack emojis for devin, cursor, Claude, ChatGPT and slam them anytime a workstream uses or needs AI
- tap a single engineer to be in charge of experimentation, adoption, and driving usage of tools
- connect your team to a peer company that’s a little ahead of them on AI for inspo and info
- ask “where is the prototype?” when given docs or figmas
- add “prompt”, “prototype link”, “run link” sections to your document templates
- run an exec training and half day hackathon
- run quarterly all company hackathons
- every time a doc is added to a specific folder, zap a AI generated summary to a slack channel
- headcount request form now has “this role has already been automated partially by…” section
- yes allow coding copilots during eng interviews but a rubric for evaluating them well
- AI fluency in career ladders and levels
- identify toil, solve it with AI. Don’t threaten the fun parts of jobs, take away the painful grind
- hire junior folks that don’t know better
@Delta I'd like you to explain the ATL to GSP flight that left at 10:55 P tonight. No reason to have to come back to Atlanta.
Tony Threatt retweeted
Want to build your first revenue stream but don't know where to start? Steal my couch-to-creator in 12 months weekly checklist ⬇️
It's a long one so bookmark it and come back for reference.
Month 1: Find your “thing”
📆Week 1: Assess your passion, skills and expertise and find two other creators in the space.
📆Week 2: Write out your ideal customer: what they need, want and the challenges they face.
📆Week 3: Write 50 subject lines to ideate the things you can talk about.
📆Week 4: Nail your “only” statement. Use the outline below to nail your positioning.
Month 2: Choose one platform
📆Week 1: Get curious about which platform you are drawn to and why.
📆Week 2: Understand if your ideal audience is there.
📆Week 3: Study what is working on the platform.
📆Week 4: Nail your platform strategy: how many times you will post a day, what kind of content and at what time.
Month 3: Find your “pod”
Most successful creators have a “pod” they engage with to help boost their content. It’s time to find yours now that you are showing up every day.
📆Week 1: Find 10 other creators at similar starting points.
📆Week 2: Reach out asking if they’d like to meet.
📆Week 3: Conduct 10 meetings.
📆Week 4: Start engaging with them every day. Like, comment and share their work.
Month 4: Build the habit
So many people fail at this step. They fail to show up consistently and lose steam. Keep going!
📆Week 1: Create a content calendar with the type of content you will post every day.
📆Week 2: Execute. Build the habit.
📆Week 3: Execute. Build the habit.
📆Week 4: Execute but faster. As you build the habit, it gets easier and easier. Eventually you will be able to write a full week’s worth of content in an hour.
Month 5: Build a waiting list
You don’t have to have an offer yet (newsletter, course, workshop, etc) but you DO need a destination to send people if they want to learn more from you. Use “Coming soon” language and start capturing email addresses.
📆Week 1: Choose a platform to hold your warm leads
📆Week 2: Play with the platform - get to know it. Watch videos. Look at examples.
📆Week 3: Write the copy for your landing page.
📆Week 4: Build your landing page
Month 6: Build the skill
Now that you are showing up every day, It’s time to get better and hone your performance.
📆Week 1: Analyze the type of content that works on the platform.
📆Week 2: Study 25 different types of hooks and content styles.
📆Week 3: Write 1 post, 10 different ways to practice writing hooks.
📆Week 4: Practice turning 1 long post into 10 shorter posts.
Month 7: Connect with the audience
Now that your audience is growing, it’s time to build a deeper relationship.
📆Week 1: Focus on responding to comments promptly.
📆Week 2: Start getting active on your audiences’ posts on their own channel.
📆Week 3: DM your audience and thank them for being on this journey. Ask them what their biggest challenge is right now?
📆Week 4: Create a survey. Send to your audience to gather more data before creating an offer.
Month 8: Choose an offer
📆Week 1: Research and decide on the type of digital offer (newsletter, course, workshop) you want to create.
📆Week 2: Draft an outline of the content you'll provide in your chosen digital offer.
📆Week 3: Determine the pricing strategy for your offer.
📆Week 4: Share your offer concept with your audience and gather feedback.
Month 9: Build the funnel
It’s time to build a funnel that will take someone from interest to conversion.
📆Week 1: Design and create landing pages for your digital offer.
📆Week 2: Determine incentive or lead magnet for offer.
📆Week 3: Map out the customer journey through the funnel.
📆Week 4: Plan and create email sequences to nurture leads.
Month 10: Build the product
📆Week 1: Start creating the content for your digital offer.
📆Week 2: Create supplementary resources like worksheets, videos, or downloadable content.
📆Week 3: Keep creating your product.
📆Week 4: Get feedback on the product.
Month 11: Build a launch plan
📆Week 1: Set specific goals for your launch.
📆Week 2: Create a pre-launch marketing strategy. How will you create buzz?
📆Week 3: Explore collaboration opportunities with other creators or influencers.
📆Week 4: Plan the logistics of your launch, including timing and communication channels.
Month 12: Launch your first revenue generating product
📆Week 1: Execute the planned launch strategy.
📆Week 2: Analyze launch performance against set goals.Gather insights for future improvements.
📆Week 3: Gather feedback.
📆Week 4: Turn early adopters into affiliates and ambassadors.
Phew. There you go.
If you like this please RT and follow me here for more early creator learnings.
Sign up for 🧩Life's a Game and get more tips from my journey to a six figure creator revenue month.
Tony Threatt retweeted
“How do I come up with new ideas?”
Here’s a few ways:
- Read academic journals
- Study your analytics
- Listen to podcasts
- Study subreddits
- Browse forums
- Go for a run
- Just write
Tony Threatt retweeted
My approach to marketing/content has always been this:
Get one content channel right before launching the next one.
One of my influences of this was Bonobos' pants. In this essay, Andy Dunn explains the strategy better than I:
ALT "Get One Thing Right" by Andy Dunn A lot of companies don’t make it because in the process of trying to get many things right, they don’t get anything right. Why are they in such a hurry? A great company is a privilege, and it’s a privilege best earned through a singular product, not a collection of products.
ALT Consumers don’t need many things from your company —they just need one thing from your company. You may want them to need everything from your company, but guess what: consumers don’t care what you want. Your job is to care about what they want, not what you want them to want. The difference between the two is the distance between a customer-centric company and an ego-centric company. If you’re not careful, the mentality of you wanting them to buy everything from you could lead to them buying nothing from you. Make one thing great. Get one thing right.
Tony Threatt retweeted
My son has a cycling coach
His coach said something that has stuck with me
Always ask yourself,
What is my role?
My son is pursuing professional cycling, so his role on most group rides is to be in the front pulling and setting pace
When I ride with my son my role is to sit on his wheel (25% easier)
We can also apply this to business;
As a GP, what’s my role?
As an LP, what’s my role?
As an analyst, what’s my role?
The list goes on and on
But I think it’s an important question:
In this _____ what is my role?
We all have a role to play, know your role
Tony Threatt retweeted
Paul Graham might be the most important person in the startup world.
He mentored Reddit, Airbnb, Stripe and so many more that went through YC.
I read his latest essay - How to Do Great Work, which takes 45 mins to read - so you don't have to.
Here are the best ideas from PG:
Tony Threatt retweeted
Every Tuesday afternoon, send your boss a short Slack message:
- The work completed that week
- What you are working on + deadlines that may have shifted or obstacles encountered
- What you are waiting on—tasks completed, but require sign-off or contributions from someone else
Tony Threatt retweeted
Embrace your employee personal brands.
Build your employee personal brands.
Enhance your employee personal brands.
Promote your employee personal brands.
Employees are the first tier of brand ambassadors.
People connect with people.
Tony Threatt retweeted
If there's one thing I've learned in business over the last 25 years, it's this:
Every difficult decision would have been easier had I made it earlier.
Tony Threatt retweeted
Understanding the 3 operating levels of your business can help you 10x your effectiveness
The 3 operating levels are:
Vision
Strategy
Tactics
Let's dig in
🧵
Tony Threatt retweeted
Apparently if you posted about the "other" app.....you are shadowbanned.
RT if you find this helpful to help spread meeting hygiene to more companies!
Tony Threatt retweeted
I've spent 100s hours of finding good PM content.
Here's my HUGE curated db of 144:
🔸 tools
🔸 books
🔸 videos
🔸 courses
🔸 websites
🔸 podcasts
🔸 templates
🔸 newsletters
I'm going to sell it for $59.
For the next 24h only: FREE!
Follow + RT + comment "🚀" and I'll DM.
Tony Threatt retweeted
Steph Curry uses a practice technique that no one talks about.
Research shows that if you practice this way, you can learn ANY skill you want. 🤷♀️
Here’s how it works, and how it can help you transform your shot (and your mind).
Sit back. Long thread ahead 🧵
Tony Threatt retweeted
PM is not the CEO of the Product. But it doesn't stop there.
She shouldn't even dictate WHAT needs to be built.
Let me explain. In most companies, it goes like this:
1. Stakeholders decide on the high-level roadmap
2. PM refines the details and creates User Stories ("WHAT")
3. Work is waterfalled to the DEVs, who only decide "HOW"
4. Designer tries to make it prettier. It's like lipsticking a pig
That's a waterfall and stage gates. Even if you use an Agile framework, don't lie to yourself. That's a project mindset.
How to clean up this mess?
1. Company defines goals (e.g., OKRs)
It's essential to realize that OKRs are not a list of tasks. Their goal is to create focus on what's not urgent yet critical for the business's long-term growth (strategy). Select only one OKR for every team. You can sequence them if needed.
In addition, ask the team to define Key Results. This helps build a stronger commitment and sense of ownership and results in better decisions.
Recommended book: Radical Focus by @cwodtke
2. The Product Trio performs Product Discovery
Learning by delivering is expensive. According to Marty Cagan, at least half of your ideas are simply not going to work. We need Product Discovery, which answers the "WHAT to build."
Instead of building silos with stage gates, embrace a collaborative approach. PM, Designer, and at least one Engineer work together to identify opportunities related to the goal, ideate solutions, and test assumptions by experimenting. Product Discovery results in a validated Product Backlog.
Tips:
- It's a Designer's job, not the Product Manager's, to create user prototypes. She is the expert responsible for Usability.
- The best ideas often come from Engineers. They are the experts who know technology by heart and can tell WHAT's possible.
- PM is responsible for the Value and Viability risks.
Recommended books:
- Inspired by @cagan
- Continuous Discovery Habits by @ttorres
3. Deliver in iterations
While the goal of Product Discovery is to answer the question "WHAT to build," the purpose of Product Delivery is to build it. Those streams should run in parallel.
Recommended articles:
- "Dual Track Development" by @jeffpatton
- "Dual-Track Agile" by @cagan (SVPG)
-
You can find all recommended books, videos, and articles in my free notion collection for PMs: lnkd.in/dgmpWTsY
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