The Product Thinking That Built Slack & Twitter w/ April Underwood

A product is not just the code ... Pushing code to production is not a launch; a launch is the point at which your target audience actually understands what you have to offer and why it matters to them.

One of my main pieces of advice for product folks is that if you have the opportunity to work on something that sits at the intersection of a technological, or even a business innovation, but also a cultural one, then run, don't walk.

If you are the blocker for your engineering and design team to make forward progress, then you need to hire a PM (product manager).

If you get confused about your developer platform and think, 'Well, I've got to serve my developers, and I need to serve my customers,' I would argue that you've already made a misstep because you're seeking to serve your customers and you're seeking to bring developers along with you who have a vested interest in serving those customers as well.

I believe you have to earn the right to be a platform. Being a platform means that you're doing one thing, and you're doing it well enough for a large enough audience of people that you become sort of a trusted avenue by which they may choose to adopt other tools, or try other things, or take the next step after the native capabilities that you offer.

The only way to be a PM (product manager) is to build and ship product, and frankly, that's accessible to anybody.