Finn Lobsien

$81m for a content business: How good is Reforge at product strategy?

(Re-)forge your product chops with our newsletter. Content so good we might upload it to Reforge. I expected to use my Reforge membership mainly for networking. I’ve taken too many online courses and read too many how-to books to get impressed by content. Reforge was different: I was

Company News

How our sales team achieved 35% QoQ revenue growth (+everything we use to sell)

This is where we sell you our newsletter Sold on reading more stuff like this? Going sales-led increased our deal size by 34% and conversion by 17%. in this article, you’ll find out how we did it. I chatted with our GTM leader Joe Skupinsky about how we approach

Case Studies

The new default for devs: How PostHog beats billion-dollar incumbents

We'll Post(hog) you the best insights Don't miss more of these insights “I’m writing about how PostHog does the opposite of all the startup advice out there”, I told my software engineer friend, “Really? I love PostHog!”, he replied “With other companies you never

Startup Advice

Stanford, SF, FAANG job - The only way to get into YC?

For a long time, Y Combinator was known as a place that sniffs out the oddball hackers nobody else would fund, but would build billion-dollar companies later.

Do we still need humans in support? Klarna’s AI chat is the future

The latest on AI support. Don't get left behind on AI support It’s rare that a software company’s product decisions make the mainstream news. It’s even rare when those product decisions barely affect the user’s core experience. Yet that’s what happened when Klarna

Case Studies

Loom's $975M onboarding secrets revealed

Want more PLG breakdowns like this? Look smart in your next meeting Tens of millions of users, a brand so strong it became a generic term and a $975 million exit to Atlassian… that’s Loom. You know the product: Record your screen, talk over it, send it to your

Growth

How Perplexity could defeat Google (if it doesn't fumble)

For the past years, Google has looked like a billionaire who’s accomplished their lifelong pursuit of wealth, but now wonders “What's next?” Google’s mission statement to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” has been accomplished to the point that people

Startup Advice

Is usage-based pricing overrated? These 3 YC founders agree (and so do we)

If you love pricing, I’m sorry for you. It means you’re a nerd like me, someone who’s fascinated with the ripple effects of tiny, but fundamental decisions. It means you have to live with the knowledge that nobody in real life cares about your little niche interests.

UX Best Practices

Crypto UX is pretty good, actually (or at least could be)

For more niche UX takes 👇 For more niche UX takes 👇 Confession: I was the “crypto bro” to friends and family. I remember a walk in the winter of 2021 where I unironically told my friend a decentralized protocol with “maybe 25 people” could replace Spotify & music labels so artists

Product Management

Humane's AI pin is a victim of its own hype (Product mistakes were made)

More lessons from the barely reviewable 👇 More lessons from the barely reviewable 👇 "This is the new worst product I've ever reviewed" is how Marques Brownlee describes the Humane Ai Pin. Brownlee is a fair reviewer who almost never goes to these extremes. Humane's hyped

Startup Advice

Airchat: Why Naval Ravikant is building yet another social network

A newsletter as fun as Airchat 👇 A newsletter as fun as Airchat 👇 Two veteran bank robbers got away with it all. They lost contact when they left their lives of crime and laid low for 15 years. Now they meet again in a seedy bar. After catching up on their

UX Best Practices

In-app "help" wasn't always this annoying (it was worse)

For more user assistance archaeology For more user assistance archaeology Imagine you run into an issue with a SaaS product. With a sigh, you poke around to make it work, swatting away the product tours and hints coming to “help” you. If that fails, you scour the docs for an

Startup Advice

Canva acquires Affinity: The product strategy behind the battle of the design tools

Acquire our newsletter for free 👇 Acquire our newsletter for free 👇 Yesterday, Canva acquired Affinity’s design tools for an undisclosed amount. In this article, we’ll explore why this is a brilliant execution of astute product strategy from Canva—and how Adobe might retaliate. First, here's what you

Product Management

Can Devin AI replace product managers?

Devin writes our newsletter 👇 Devin writes our newsletter 👇 In the fall of last year, I wrote about whether AI could replace product managers. I tried to use ChatGPT for product management tasks. As part of my conclusion, I wrote: Perhaps this means the age of AI will equip each product

Startup Advice

Attack on Excel: 3 startups coming for the spreadsheet throne

We write our newsletter in Excel 👇 We write our newsletter in Excel 👇 I have a frustrating childhood memory of playing Pokemon Red on my flea market GameBoy Advance at 5am. Right after you start the game, there’s the Viridian Forest. I encountered lots of cool bug type Pokemon—and

Product Management

Arc: Lessons from a product that shouldn’t work

Follow our arc(h) 👇 Follow our arc(h) 👇 My friend chuckled when I showed him Arc. He’s a machine learning engineer, a technical purist who only finds products impressive if they’re breaking new technical ground. Looking at Arc, he scowled, “A new web browser, huh? Because that’s

Growth

Product Lessons from Linear: Controlling a narrative

Where we glaze other great products 👇 Where we glaze other great products 👇 We recently published our CommandBar manifesto. It’s an article that won’t rank on Google and isn’t technically “product marketing”. Publishing it might feel self-indulgent. But we believe it’ll become one of our most important

Startup Advice

The Product of Lenny: How product strategy fundamentals created a one-person, million-dollar business

Help us follow in Lenny's footsteps Help us follow in Lenny's footsteps Learning from Lenny Rachitsky is frustrating. I wanted to uncover growth secrets I could apply at CommandBar but only found what looked like lucky breaks: He quit his job at Airbnb to take a

Startup Advice

How to grow your LinkedIn following for SaaS founders

Help us grow *our* audience 👇 Help us grow *our* audience 👇 In consumer products, creator/celebrity brands are one of the biggest trends. Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime drink reportedly does $1.2 billion in revenue. Mr Beast’s chocolate company Feastibles is a $200 million business. The right face

Hot

How AI is changing product and hiring (original research 2024)

For SaaS-relevant AI updates 👇 For SaaS-relevant AI updates 👇 There’s no shortage of tweets, articles and videos proclaiming AI is changing the way we work, the jobs we do and the products we sell. But how widespread are artificial intelligence products? How does it affect job and career prospects? We

Product Management

How (not) to convert PLG Users: Guide for product-led SaaS

Improve *our* conversion rate 👇 Improve *our* conversion rate 👇 In theory, product-led growth attracts customers without a sales team. Like a well-oiled machine, it entices free users with a free trial and then seduces them into a paid plan. In practice, product-led growth often attracts tire kickers without intent to buy.

Growth

How to get users to try your new AI feature

How we get users to try our newsletter 👇 How we get users to try our newsletter 👇 The feature is in prod, the newsletter queued up. Social posts are scheduled. An engineer on standby for last minute fixes, someone from growth to respond to comments. It's a feature launch,

CommandBar Tips

How to create product surveys users don’t hate

Just a newsletter, no survey Just a newsletter, no survey One of my favorite memories are seemingly infinite afternoons with my Dad, sifting through seemingly infinite bins of LEGO bricks, hunting down an elusive piece we knew was somewhere. We had all of my Dad’s LEGOs, all of mine

UX Best Practices

How to create product tours users don't skip

More best practices await 👇 More best practices await 👇 Imagine you’re excited about visiting a friend’s house for the first time. You arrive, ring the doorbell and enter. “Welcome” he says, “Let me show you around”. He walks you into the living room, shows off the view from the

Product Management

Why your product bled growth: The death of 'forever free'?

More ZIRP-spotting in SaaS 👇 More ZIRP-spotting in SaaS 👇 When money stops falling out of Patagonia vest pockets, you need to make your own. Over the past year or so, I've read far more "contact sales" buttons on SaaS websites than "start for free". That&