Shreyas Doshi

Shreyas Doshi is a former product leader at Stripe, Twitter, Google, and Yahoo. He’s now a full-time advisor and coach to founders and executives. Shreyas is known for his incredibly insightful writing on products, which has garnered him a passionate following in the PM and startup community. Last week, we sat down together at the very first Lenny and Friends Summit in San Francisco for a special live episode. We covered: • Why product leaders often feel overwhelmed with work, and how to combat it • The importance of developing good taste, and how to do it • How to reduce frustration in your product leadership role • The critical skill of truly listening as a leader • Common pitfalls in annual planning and decision-making • Lots of laughs — To learn more from Shreyas, check out these courses: • Improving Your Product Sense: https://bit.ly/product-sense • Managing Your PM Career: https://bit.ly/pm-career-course — Brought to you by: • WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs • Paragon—Ship every SaaS integration your customers want • Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security — Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/shreyas-doshi-live — Where to find Shreyas Doshi: • X: https://x.com/shreyas • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreyasdoshi/ • Threads: https://www.threads.net/@shreyas.threads • Linktree: https://linktr.ee/shreyasdoshi • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ShreyasDoshiVideos — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction (05:35) Question one: Why am I so busy? (10:08) Annual planning as an example (16:48) Tactical tips for staying less busy (25:20) Question two: Do I actually have good taste? (38:09) Question three: Why does my job feel so frustrating? (43:29) Question four: Am I really listening? (44:35) Closing remarks — Referenced: • Shreyas Doshi on pre-mortems, the LNO framework, the three levels of product work, why most execution problems are strategy problems, and ROI vs. opportunity cost thinking: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/episode-3-shreyas-doshi • LNO framework: https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1492345184171945984 • Time management techniques that actually work: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/time-management-techniques-that-actually • Part 2: Time management techniques that actually work: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/part-2-time-management-techniques • Eisenhower quote: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/dwight_d_eisenhower_164720 • Stripe Connect: https://stripe.com/connect • Jeff Bezos explains one-way door decisions and two-way door decisions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxsdOQa_QkM • Spotify Is America’s Most Loved Workplace: https://www.newsweek.com/2021/10/29/spotify-americas-most-loved-workplace-1639982.html • Shreyas on “thinking is cheap”: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shreyasdoshi_thinking-is-very-cheap-doing-is-very-expensive-activity-7225237421813116929-Qzi3/ • Good Product Strategy, Bad Product Strategy from Shreyas: https://x.com/shreyas/status/1244810075908128768 • Shreyas on annual planning and metrics: https://x.com/shreyas/status/1302423854095036421 https://x.com/shreyas/status/1304628719374544896 • Jensen Huang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenhsunhuang/ • Patrick Mahomes’s website: https://www.adidas.com/us/patrick_mahomes • Virat Kohli: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virat_Kohli • Reversible and Irreversible Decisions: https://fs.blog/reversible-irreversible-decisions/ • Fail fast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail_fast • 3 levels of product work: https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1370248637842812936 • Shakespeare quote: https://nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/famous/to-thine-own-self-be-true/ • Rick Rubin: Legendary Music Producer | Lex Fridman Podcast #275: https://Dwww.youtube.com/watch?v=H_szemxPcTI • Blake Burge on Rick Ruben: https://x.com/blakeaburge/status/1794470295828341222 • Rick Rubin on X: https://x.com/RickRubin • Dee Hock on X: https://x.com/deewhock • Dee Hock quote on listening: https://x.com/shreyas/status/1351279398423465984 • Peter Drucker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker • Peter Drucker quotes on listening: https://www.azquotes.com/author/4147-Peter_Drucker/tag/listening • Lenny’s first podcast recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP_QghPLG-8 • A Recipe to Become a Great Listener: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUQJkiDy2Ko — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Shreyas Doshi

Advisor and Coach

SCShreyas Doshi ConsultingStripe

Annie Pearl is the CPO @ Calendly, the company that makes scheduling meetings simple and painless. Before Calendly, Annie led Glassdoor's product vision and user experience, managing a 70-person product and design org. Shreyas Doshi is an investor, advisor, and all-around product OG. Most recently Shreyas spent over 5 years at Stripe where he was Stripe's first PM Manager and helped grow the PM function (from ~5 to more than 50 people). Before Stripe, Shreyas was a Director of Product Management @ Twitter. David Lieb is one of the product OGs of the last decade. As the founder of Bump David pioneered how over 150M users shared data, contacts and more before the company was acquired by Google. At Google, David took this one step further by creating Google Photos. Marty Cagan is one of the OGs of Product and Product Management as the Founder of Silicon Valley Product Group. Before founding SVPG, Marty served as an executive responsible for defining and building products for Hewlett-Packard, Netscape Communications, and eBay. Aparna Chennapragada is the former CPO @ Robinhood, revolutionizing consumer finance with commission-free investing. Prior to Robinhood, she spent an incredible 12 years at Google, most recently as VP and GM for Consumer Shopping and also as the lead AR and Visual Search products. Lenny Rachitsky is one of the OGs of product, having spent over 7 years at Airbnb as a product lead he left to start his newsletter, find it here. This has scaled to thousands upon thousands of readers and one of the most popular newsletters on Substack. For the last 7 years, Kayvon Beykpour has been at Twitter where he led all of the teams across Product, Engineering, Design, Research, and Customer Service & Operations. Kayvon came to Twitter through Periscope, the live broadcasting app he founded that was acquired by Twitter in 2015. Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur, author, investor, and currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer. Scott oversees all of product and engineering for Creative Cloud, as well as design for Adobe. In 2006, Scott founded Behance, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. In Today's Episode on How to Hire a Product Manager, We Discuss: 1.) When to Hire Your First PM: What are the core signs that the founder must delegate and hire their first PM? What are the first things that are breaking when you do not have one but need one? How does the timing of the first PM differ when comparing B2B vs B2C? 2.) What is the Right Profile: What should founders look for in this first PM hire? What traits make the best? What are the biggest red flags in the personalities and styles of potential candidates? Should they have experience in the product domain they are entering? What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when analyzing the resumes of potential PM candidates? What should they look for in their resume? 3.) The Hiring Process: How To Hire a Product Manager How do we structure and run the hiring process for this person? What tests can we do to understand if they have the skill set we need for the role? How do we structure a hiring panel to make this process more effective? What are the biggest mistakes founders make in the hiring process for PMs?

Annie Pearl

Chief Product Officer

Calendly

Shreyas Doshi

Advisor and Coach

SCShreyas Doshi ConsultingStripe

David Lieb

Director

GoogleY Combinator

Shreyas Doshi is an investor, advisor, and all-around product OG. Most recently Shreyas spent over 5 years at Stripe where he was Stripe's first PM Manager and helped define and grow the Product Management function (from ~5 to more than 50 people). Before Stripe, Shreyas was a Director of Product Management @ Twitter and prior to Twitter spent over 6 years as a Group Product Manager @ Google. Today Shreyas has invested and advises some of the best including advising Airtable, Kalshi, Lendflow, to name a few. In Today's Episode with Shreyas Doshi: 1.) Entry into Product: How did Shreyas make his way into the world of product and product management? Why did Shreyas decide not to do business school when it was the conventional route for everyone going into product management? What were some of Shreyas' biggest takeaways from his time at Stripe and Google? How did they impact his product mind today? 2.) Product Management 101: How does Shreyas define product management today? How do many confuse it? How does Shreyas define product success today? What is the single biggest mistake Shreyas sees founders make when determining the success/PMF of their product? Does Shreyas believe that great product management is science or art? Data or intuition? When should you listen to customers? When should you not? 3.) Metrics 101 & How To Use Them: What is the single biggest mistake Shreyas sees founders make when it comes to selecting their North Star metric? How should founders think about input vs output metrics? What is the difference between the two? What are the 6 types of metrics that all founders and product teams need to focus on? How does their importance change over time? How should the responsibility for these metrics be split between different people and teams? 4.) Three Types of Product Leader: What are the three different types of product leaders? The Craftsperson: What is their core strength? What is their core weakness? How do they interact with the rest of the team and company? The Operator: What is their core strength? What is their core weakness? How do they interact with the rest of the team and company? The Visionary: What is their core strength? What is their core weakness? How do they interact with the rest of the team and company?

Shreyas Doshi

Advisor and Coach

SCShreyas Doshi ConsultingStripe

Shreyas Doshi is a treasure trove of knowledge and tactical insights on product, strategy, psychology, leadership, and life. Over the course of his career, he’s PM’d at Google, Twitter, Yahoo, and Stripe, where he joined as its fourth product manager, later becoming Stripe’s first PM manager and helping define and grow its product management function (from ~5 to more than 50 people). Since leaving Stripe, Shreyas has amassed a huge Twitter following in large part thanks to consistent sharing of high-quality insights on the art of product management. — Find the full transcript here: https://www.podpage.com/lennys-podcast/shreyas-doshi-on-pre-mortems-the-lno-framework-the-three-levels-of-product-work-why-most-executio/#transcript — In this episode, we’ll explore five big ideas from Shreyas Doshi: 1) How to predict and prevent problems with pre-mortems * How did pre-mortem meetings impact the culture at Stripe? * What are the best practices in running a pre-mortem meeting? 2) How to prioritize your time with the LNO framework * What is the LNO framework? How did it change the way Shreyas went about his day? * What is the two-step tactic you can apply to overcome procrastination on important tasks?  3) The three levels of product work * What are the three levels of product work? Which level should you optimize for? * How might these product work levels cause conflict or influence your company culture? 4) Most execution problems are not really execution problems  * What are the common types of problems hiding behind the execution label?  * What are the two traits you need to identify a fake execution problem? 5) Why ROI thinking is detrimental to product planning * What is the pitfall of ROI thinking? * What is opportunity-cost thinking and how can you apply it? — References: * Coda template: https://coda.io/@shreyas/pre-mortems-how-a-stripe-product-manager-predicts-prevents-probl * Pre-mortems: https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1221257568510603264 * LNO framework: https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1492345184171945984 * Three levels of product work: https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1370248637842812936 * Execution problems: https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1427116991274307588 * Opportunity-cost thinking: https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1409726218438549514 * High agency: https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1276956836856393728 — Where to find Shreyas: * Twitter: https://twitter.com/shreyas * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreyasdoshi/ — Our amazing sponsors: * Coda: https://coda.io/lenny * Productboard: https://www.productboard.com/ * Sprig: https://sprig.com/lenny This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Shreyas Doshi

Advisor and Coach

SCShreyas Doshi ConsultingStripe