Easy everything in Product Management, page 13
Qualitative vs. Quantitative: The 'Why' and the 'How Many'
Quantitative research counts and measures ("how many?"), while qualitative research explores and understands ("why?"). Use quantitative for A/B tests to get statistical proof, and qualitative for user interviews to uncover motivations.
User Personas: Build for a 'Who', Not a 'What'
Personas are fictional character sheets for your ideal users, grounding product decisions in human needs, not just features. They guide choices from UI to marketing by asking "What would our user do?".
PESTLE Analysis: Mapping Your Business's External World
PESTLE analysis is a strategic checklist for scanning the external world for threats and opportunities you can't control but must react to. It's used for market entry strategy and product development.
TAM, SAM, SOM: Sizing Your Market Opportunity
TAM, SAM, and SOM are nested filters for market size. TAM is the total demand, SAM is the segment you can serve, and SOM is what you can realistically capture. It's how you go from 'everyone' to 'our first 1,000 users'.
Strategy vs. Tactics: The Map vs. The Directions
Strategy is your destination and why you're going; tactics are the turn-by-turn directions. A product strategy defines the long-term goal, like 'capture the enterprise market,' while tactics are the specific feature launches to get there.
Product Strategy: The 'Why' Behind Your Product
Product strategy is the 'why' behind your product, connecting its vision to business goals. It's the compass that guides development, not the feature-by-feature map. The common footgun is confusing strategy (the why) with the roadmap (the what and when).
Growth Meeting Cadence: Focus on Learnings, Not Updates
Run your weekly growth meeting like a learning synthesizer, not a status report. Focus on extracting insights from experiments to drive future impact. The biggest mistake is wasting time on "what" you're doing; handle status updates asynchronously.
Growth Product Manager: Driving Metrics, Not Just Features
A Growth PM is a business optimizer for an existing product. They focus on moving a single metric like user activation or retention, often through rapid experimentation. This role is key in product-led companies where the product must sell itself.
ETL vs. ELT: When to Transform Your Data
ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) preps data before storage, like a chef prepping ingredients. ELT loads raw data first, transforming it inside the warehouse. Use ETL for structured reporting; use ELT for flexibility with raw data.
Linear Regression: Forecasting with a Straight Line
Linear regression forecasts the future by drawing a straight line through past data. It's used to predict outcomes like sales based on ad spend or energy use based on temperature.
Growth Accounting: What's Really Driving Your Growth?
Growth accounting splits your growth into two parts: adding more resources (like ad spend) and getting better with what you have. Use it to see if growth came from a bigger budget or a better product.
Freemium Model: Free Forever, Pay for More
The Freemium model offers a basic product for free, charging only for premium features, services, or goods. This pricing strategy is common in software and video games (as "free-to-play").
The Self-Serve Funnel: Let Your Product Do the Selling
A self-serve funnel lets users discover, try, and buy your product without talking to a human, making the product the main sales driver. It powers rapid growth for companies like Slack. The main footgun is poor onboarding; if users get stuck, they churn.
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)
ARPU is the average revenue each user generates, a pulse check for a subscription business's health. It's used by media and SaaS companies to track if users are becoming more valuable, but it can be skewed by a few high-paying "whales."
Subscription Business Model: Renting Access, Not Selling Products
A subscription model rents access to a product instead of selling it, creating predictable, recurring revenue. It's common for digital goods like streaming services or SaaS.
Freemium: Give Away the Basics, Sell the Upgrades
Freemium gives away a useful core product for free to attract a large audience, then sells premium features to a small subset of users. It's common in apps and games. The footgun is miscalibrating the free tier: make it too good and no one pays.
Push Notifications: Strategy Over Noise
A push notification strategy treats a user's lock screen like rented real estate, not a free megaphone. It's used by mobile apps to re-engage users with timely value, like sales or reminders.
DAU/MAU Ratio: Measuring Product Stickiness
The DAU/MAU ratio measures product “stickiness” by showing what percentage of your monthly users return daily. A high ratio suggests a strong daily habit, common for social or communication apps. The footgun is judging all products by the same benchmark.
Customer Retention: Are Users Sticking Around?
Customer retention measures if users return to your product. It's often more valuable to keep an existing customer than acquire a new one. This is critical for any business relying on repeat engagement, from SaaS to e-commerce.
Welcome Email Sequence: Guide Users from Signup to Value
A welcome email sequence guides new users from sign-up to experiencing your product's core value. It's crucial for SaaS products to reduce churn by encouraging key actions. The footgun is sending just one email and hoping users figure out the rest.
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