We track Product so you don't have to. Top Podcasts summarised, the latest AI tools, plus research and news in a 5 min digest.

Hello, Product fans!

Gear up for another flavour-packed edition of Product Tapas 🌮.

🔥 In Today’s Sharing Platter:

1. 📰 Not Boring News: Dive into a variety of hot topics like Lassie's $25M Series B funding, the impact of AI on the workweek, and Amazon's latest tech advancements. 🌐

2. 🤖 GPT & Tool Time: Discover our hand-picked time savers and memory joggers to keep you super-efficient. Check out Lennybot, Rewind's digital memory tool, Augment's AI assistant, and our very own Product Tapas Product Audit tool for a comprehensive review of your organization's product management maturity. 👀 👀 more on that below

3. 🎙️ Product Bites: Savour our summary of the Jobs-to-be-Done Masterclass with Tony Ulwick & Sabeen Sattar, and a podcast review on developing discipline and resilience in work and life. 🧠

Let’s dig in 🚀👇

📰 Not boring

• As pet owners turn to mobile insurance apps, Lassie raises $25M Series B led by Balderton

• A record $9.8 billion was spent on U.S. Black Friday online sales

• Bill Gates thinks a 3-day work week could be a thing thanks to AI

• Mastering the Art of Load Testing for Web Applications

• DEI backlash hits corporate America

• 🤬 Engineers are building uncensored AI models thanks to current models trying hard to be uncontroversial

• Visual Effects model design from 1980 👀 

• AWS announces three new serverless offerings designed to help customers manage Aurora, Elastic Cache, and Redshift deployments

• Amazon One, preview launch - allowing US businesses use its palm-scanning tech as authentication to let employees into the office

• Google investigating missing files on Drive, caused by desktop app

• Elon Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralin raises over $40 million in new funding

• A Spanish agency got sick of influencer models and built its own AI influencer that’s bringing in over $10,000 per month

View more →

📰 Time-Saving Tools & GPTs

1. Check out Lennybot - This bot is trained on Lenny's Newsletter, Lenny's Podcast, plus on some of his favorite online writing about product, growth, and career. It’s exactly what I want to create over time with our Pod Bites bots.

2. Product Metrics: The Ultimate Guide (+free links) from Pawel Huryn:

   1. Frameworks:

   • North Star Framework 101 (PDF)

   • AARRR (Pirate) Metrics

   • Google HEART framework

   2. Techniques:

   • Cohort Analysis

   • Funnel Analysis

   • Customer Segmentation

   3. Types of metrics:

   • Vanity vs. actionable metrics

   • Qualitative vs. quantitative metrics

   • Exploratory vs. reporting metrics

   • Lagging vs. leading metrics

   4. What makes a good metric?

   • A good metric is understandable

   • A good metric is a comparative

   • A good metric is a ratio or rate

   • A good metric is behavior-changing

   5. The Ultimate List of Product Metrics (PDF link):

   • Acquisition Metrics

   • Activation Metrics

   • Engagement Metrics

   • Retention Metrics

   • Revenue Metrics

   • Referral Metrics

   6. Recommended books:

   • Lean Analytics by Alistair Croll and Ben Yoskovitz

   • Product Analytics by Joanne Rodrigues:

   • Data Science for Business by Foster Provost and Tom Fawcett

3. Rewind: Your personal digital memory - a search engine that creates a timeline of everything you do on the internet

4. Augment - Similar to Rewind - your personal AI assistant that works everywhere you do

5. Product Tapas Product Audit tool: Our own comprehensive Product Management Audit tool 👀 👀 👀 allows you to thoroughly evaluate your organisation’s end-to-end product management practice, by gauging Product Maturity across four key areas:

   1. Strategy & Principles

   2. Execution & Delivery

   3. Team Capabilities

   4. Data-Driven Insights

   Featuring 19 targeted questions, this audit tool generates a dynamic visual output making it easy to pinpoint strengths versus development areas.

   Tailored recommendations then provide clear direction on reaching the next level of product management maturity and help facilitate productive prioritisation conversations with cross-functional partners.

   The full spreadsheet tool equips you to independently conduct audits while accessing the GPT version simplifies the process further. Drive organisation-wide product excellence through objective assessment.

   Sound interesting? Snag your free copy just by bringing 5 friends to our Product Tapas family using the link below [web users see newsletter for link] 🚀👇

🫦 Product Bites

📚 Jobs-to-be-Done Masterclass with Tony Ulwick & Sabeen Sattar: A Practical Guide

Dive in for a summary of the recent Product Compass Pod and article by Pawel Huryn 👇

📖 Read the full article here

🌟 What's the Buzz? In a compelling masterclass, Tony Ulwick and Sabeen Sattar delve into the Jobs-to-be-Done Framework (JTBD), providing a rich, practical guide for product leaders. They demonstrate how to apply JTBD and Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI) effectively, outlining a methodical approach for understanding and catering to customer needs in product development.

🚀 What's the Big Deal? - Practical Steps to Leverage JTBD: The masterclass covers a comprehensive JTBD process with actionable steps:

1. Market Definition: Identifying your target market and their primary job-to-be-done. For example, defining pet owners as the market and their job as providing nutrition to pets.

2. Identifying Customer Needs: Utilizing the JTBD Needs Framework, the process involves breaking down the job into specific steps and corresponding outcomes. This includes mapping out what success looks like for each step of the job, such as minimizing the time taken to determine pet nutrition needs.

3. Surveying for Satisfaction and Importance: Conduct customer surveys to measure how well current solutions are meeting each outcome and how important these outcomes are to customers. This involves asking about current solutions used, the importance of outcomes, and satisfaction levels.

4. Opportunity Score Calculation: Aggregate survey results to calculate Opportunity Scores for each outcome, highlighting areas where customer needs are underserved. An Opportunity Score combines the importance rating with the gap between importance and satisfaction.

5. Targeting Underserved Needs: Analyze outcomes with high Opportunity Scores to focus on areas with the most potential for improvement or innovation.

💡 Why Should You Care? - Practical Takeaways: The JTBD framework is crucial for product managers and entrepreneurs aiming to create products that truly resonate with their target market. By following the detailed steps provided in the masterclass, you can:

• Gain a deeper understanding of your customers' true needs.

• Prioritize product features and improvements based on quantifiable data.

• Identify new opportunities for innovation by focusing on underserved areas.

🔗 Helpful Resources:

• JTBD e-book and audiobook: JTBD Book and Audiobook

• JTBD Playbook (PDF): JTBD Playbook

• JTBD Market Definition Canvas (PDF): Market Definition Canvas

• Industry-Specific JTBD Frameworks (PDF): Industry Frameworks

• Complete ODI Process Overview: ODI Process

📖 Read the full article here

🎙️ Pod Review: Developing Discipline and Resilience in Work and Life

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes. Time saved 49 minutes 🔥

In this episode of The Knowledge Project, performance psychologist Dr. Gio Valiente shares his insights on developing discipline and resilience in work and life. Drawing from his experience working with top athletes and entrepreneurs, Dr. Valiente discusses the five ways to gain an advantage and win, the role of environment in discipline, and how to cultivate resilience in ourselves and our children.

Theme 1: The Five Ways to Gain an Advantage and Win 🔍

Dr. Valiente introduces the concept of the five ways to gain an advantage and compete and win. He explains that talent is the first way, where individuals possess innate abilities that set them apart. However, talent alone is not enough. The second way is through hard work and effort. Dr. Valiente emphasizes the importance of going all in and being committed to outworking the competition. The third way is having a differentiated perspective, seeing the world differently and finding unique approaches. He provides examples of different perspectives in sports and investing. The fourth way is having a rigorous, disciplined process. Dr. Valiente highlights the significance of consistency and routine in achieving success. Lastly, the fifth way is hiring effectively, surrounding oneself with the best people to compensate for any deficiencies.

Theme 2: Discipline and Willpower 🔍 

Dr. Valiente delves into the concept of discipline and its relationship with willpower. He explains that discipline is a habit of mind that evolves into a habit of behaviour. While some traits are fixed, discipline is a malleable trait that can be developed. He emphasizes the importance of changing actual behaviour and creating a routine to reinforce discipline. Dr. Valiente also discusses the role of environment in encouraging or hindering discipline. He shares examples of how changing the environment can shape behaviour, such as rearranging seating in a classroom or altering the atmosphere in a casino.

Theme 3: Resilience in Work and Life 🔍

Dr. Valiente explores the concept of resilience and its significance in achieving success. He discusses how resilience is often a determining factor in long-term success, alongside delayed gratification. He highlights the importance of experiencing normative failure, where failure becomes the norm and resilience becomes second nature. Dr. Valiente emphasises that overprotecting children can hinder their development of resilience and suggests exposing them to challenges and hardships to foster resilience. He draws parallels to the lotus flower, which grows out of muck, symbolizing the beauty that emerges from difficult circumstances.

Practical Tips and Tools: - Changing the environment to shape behaviour (e.g., rearranging seating, altering atmosphere) - Creating routines and habits to reinforce discipline - Exposing children to challenges and hardships to foster resilience

Overall, this episode provides valuable insights into developing discipline and resilience in work and life. Dr. Valiente's expertise in performance psychology shines through as he shares practical tips and real-life examples. Listen in full to gain a deeper understanding of the five ways to gain an advantage, the role of environment in discipline, and the importance of resilience in achieving long-term success.

🕒 Timestamp Details:

• Theme 1: The Five Ways to Gain an Advantage and Win (00:05:49)

• Theme 2: Discipline and Willpower (00:22:20

• Theme 3: Resilience in Work and Life (00:37:20)

🔗 Link to Full Audio, 🔗 Link to SwellAI Transcript

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That’s a wrap. Today’s smorgasbord covered: Lassie's funding triumph, AI's workplace impact, Amazon's innovations, and chances to skill up on JTBD and resilience.

As always, the journey doesn't end here! Keep exploring, keep questioning, and most importantly, keep growing in your product journey. Until our next issue, keep savouring the bites of wisdom we've shared. 🚀👋

Alastair & the Product Tapas Team 🍽️.