Curtis VanderGriendt

If problem spaces were easy, everyone would do it.

Persistence, iteration, and creativity drive winning solutions.

I have a renewed appreciation for holidays that include rest, exercise, and the sound of the ocean.

This is the perfect reset for mental health and stress management.

I’ve used tools like Grain to create a highlight reel of clips. I’ve played these in various settings with different audiences. There is nothing like hearing it directly from customers.

Related, it would be great to do barrier-free/accessible. My brother is in an electric wheelchair and navigating restaurants etc is always a challenge.

Until they need to buy out the remainder of his contract, just like Bobby Bonilla.

It's Bobby Bonilla Day! Why former Met gets $1.19M every July 1 -- and how it compares to Ohtani's deferrals Bobby Bo hasn't been a Met since 1999, but Monday he'll receive a hefty check from his former team. Here's what to know about the deferred money.

I look forward to annual Juan Soto days to go along with Bobby Bonilla day.

The Mets really have a knack for this.

www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/...

I love everything about what @mcuban.bsky.social is doing to address a systemic problem. Literally will save lives by continuing to build this.

I find this really interesting. As always, one company’s approach won’t necessarily work for others.

What does your company do that goes against the common “best practices”?

Building new products is hard.

Resilience and adaptability are at the core of 0 > 1.

You have to have grit and determination to find a path forward as new insights emerge.

#prodmgmnt #product

Throwing this thread out again to hopefully get some other perspectives and experiences.

#product #productmgmt

I’m curious to understand more. What were the inputs to give you both confidence? Or was it more high risk and gut/conviction driven?

I’m curious - how are law firms managing their spending and expenses, especially advanced costs? What are some of the challenges?

#legaltech

In my current role I have a fantastic relationship with product marketing. We both own it together.

This information lives across multiple tools including slides, Slack, Notion, Asana, etc

I think there is a large spectrum here from small improvements to full product launches.

Some big pain points from my experience, and opinions on all of them:
- aligning on dates
- sales motions
- sales enablement
- positioning and messaging
- segmentation/ target audience
- Ops (often neglected)

Still remember the jazz session years ago at Fluxible.

Still struggling to find the right engagement with people talking about Product and/or Design on Blue Sky.

Things like contrary views on all the beloved frameworks, GTM lessons, growth, 0 > 1 products, career trajectories, etc.

Maybe hashtags helps?

#product #productmanagement

The legaltech landscape is a fascinating place.

You have the explosion of LLMs at the same time as many customers adopting their first software products.

Both early adopters and extreme laggards.

Appreciate the transparency here. Always important lessons to be learned through no-blame postmortems.

Completely agree. I coach colleagues on avoiding those leading questions.

Focus on,
“How do you…”
“Tell me about the last time…”
“Can you elaborate on that?”
etc

Starting very broad - intentional conversations with customers, or prospective customers, with the intent to inform or shape future product direction.

This could be existing products, or entirely new. I think that plays a lot into the scope of the questions, the methods, and who is best suited.

I come from contexts where there has never been a dedicated researcher, or frankly, anyone strongly rooted in a research skill set. It typically falls to whoever has an affinity for it. That could be designers or product managers.

Commenting to follow along. Very much appreciate the nuance here.

Avoiding conflict, or difficult conversations, never ends well.

A people leader shared interesting insight on this. She said she tells her reports they have to earn the right to be “less managed” by demonstrating good judgement, results, and high emotional intelligence.

Share customer insights.

Share your insights from customers calls internally as broadly as you can. We have a dedicated Slack channel for this. It helps build empathy and also an understanding of what you are building and why.

Never stop talking to customers. It should be weekly, if not daily.

We have benefitted from so many insights while building and also have a strong Beta waitlist as a result of these efforts.

It’s part of our regular cadence and rhythm.

*morale. Ha. No edit option.

Be a cheerleader.

Reinforcing positivity and acknowledging accomplishments along the way is so important for moral.

Always be calling back to the why - why our customers love this, why it’s important for company strategy, why you work matters to company outcomes.

Invest in relationships.

Beyond the code and the deadlines and the plans and the all the “work”, strong relationships will get you over hurdles.

Build trust so you can call on others when needed. This is particularly true when partners are also in the picture.

Ruthless prioritization.

This isn’t, or shouldn’t be, news. You are daily revisiting priorities and past decisions, both large and small in scope.

See @johncutle.fish’s writing and workshops on prioritization.