Spotify-level execution
+ How to make your ideas stick
“Execution is 95%.”
- Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify
That makes execution 20x more important than product ideas or vision. Yet, it’s far less talked about. These are the elements of great product execution:
1. Being code-ready
Many stretched PMs pass on specs to engineering that aren’t code-ready. They miss a corner case, having bug-free design, or key technical understanding. You have to write a great PRD and have worked through user & technical details to be “code ready.”
2. Defining incremental releases
Product execution is about translating vision and strategy to releases. Although the product vision is always grand, it’s a mistake to get there in one step. You have to build-ship-learn fast. Driving that cycle is the essence of execution.
3. Building things that match the team’s skills
The magic of execution done right is it “fits.” It’s about working through the “little” details. When defining incremental releases, customize to the team. It’s best to reframe work that might throw off the team’s rhythm.
4. Pre-covering measurement
Getting into executional details means working with analytics in advance to define the target metrics, how to set up the experiment, and whether eng understand the events & telemetry to put in place. Shallow PMs tend to miss one of these.
5. Volunteering to unblock the engineering team
When building product in modern companies, numerous questions and dependencies arise. Great product execution is about recognizing & then volunteering to unblock these issues. It’s about being in the trenches of building.
6. Increasing the well-being of designers & engineers
Great product execution is about thinking far enough ahead to minimize crunch. The worst mistake is burning out the team. The best, like Daniel, go further and motivate the team to see possibility when roadblocks arise.
7. Involving legal & compliance at the right times
Sloppy execution treats compliance & legal as afterthoughts. Great execution builds in enough time for them to feedback & review designs. Poor execution experiences delays because this is missed.
8. Building the necessary cross-functional support
Products almost always have implications for other teams: sales, marketing, support, other product teams. Execution is about making sure all those impacted teams are okay - ideally, happy - with the feature.
9. Keeping a close eye on the metrics
Great execution means owning the outcome. You become the one people go to explain your team’s metrics. You should know the drivers of the big changes first.
10. Juggling all of these balls in the air at once
Great execution is all about great prioritization. You have to do these 10 tasks and more. The key is to understand what can fall under the table, can be “just okay,” and must be done really well.
As Daniel says, “If you keep executing, the right person will figure out how to sell umbrellas in the Sahara.”
How to make your ideas stick
Most PMs wish they could convince better.
The problem? Their ideas are not framed to stick.
6 elements to make your ideas stick:
S imple
U nexepected
C oncrete
C redible
E motional
S tories
You want what you’re saying to have all 6 of these characteristics.
Today’s example: a feature to add karaoke style lyrics to YouTube.
Simple
Simplicity is not about dumbing down. It’s prioritizing. In Hollywood, they sell movies on high-concept pitches, like: “Die Hard on a Bus” (Speed). This should be the goal for product pitches.
The easy mistake is to marshal all your evidence. “Our user research, data, and engineers think…” Your communication becomes hard to follow.
Going back to our example: “13% of our non-artist song listens are lyrics videos” is better. We lead with one item: a cool stat.
Unexpected
Before your message can stick, your audience has to want it. Violate a schema.
For our example: “But that’s because half of songs don’t have lyric videos.” You get attention in the middle of the meeting. Because everyone thought we had great coverage.
Then hold the attention. The easiest way to do this is by creating curiosity gaps. This keeps everyone listening.
For our example: “We peeled this back in several layers.” It gets people to anticipate a few layers.
Concrete
Make your ideas understandable.
Use things like:
sensory language
mental pictures
vivid details
For our example: “We first wanted to understand breadth, how many videos. Then severity, how many failed searches.”
Credible
Credibility comes from facts and details. Show you’ve done your work.
For our example: “83% of uploaded lyrics videos are taken down for copyright violations. This results in 50K failed searches a day.”
Emotional
Numbers aren’t why people fall in love with ideas though. People care about people, those who they can identify with.
For our example: “This leads to many frustrated searchers, like JennyV. She was embarrassed when they couldn’t karaoke her favorite song.”
Stories
The element that finally ties together a sticky idea is storytelling. Stories drive response.
For our example, we could make Jenny a hero and describe her problems: “Jenny had been planning for her birthday for weeks. We saw her next 6 months usage down 25%.”
And in just a 30 second pitch, we’ve built a sticky idea. I recommend trying to use as many of the 6 elements as you can. Just remember to prioritize and stay concise.
Check out the book Made to Stick for more details. It’s a wonderfully engaging read.
Bonus: How to develop awesome technical skills
“CS Background Preferred:” It’s one of the most feared PM requirements.
But even if you don’t have a CS degree, you can develop awesome technical skills.
10 steps to becoming a great technical partner as a PM:
1. Query the data
Learn how to use SQL and python to pull data out of your company’s database. Create a list of 3 questions you’re keen to learn. Get the permissions from IT. Make a friend in analytics
Then get to work. Google as you go. Ping your friend in analytics if you get stuck along the way, and for code review. This data project will directly help your work as a PM, and is a fun way to get into writing code.
2. Subscribe to ByteByteGo
Meanwhile, begin reading Alex Xu’s newsletter. It is filled with overviews of practical technical concepts. It’ll vastly improve your “fluency” when talking to engineers. Plus improve your system design chops.
3. Live browser edit
The next thing you want to learn to code is live browser editing. Pull up your site, and learn how to change the color of buttons yourself. It’s a great way to dive into HTML and CSS. It will give you a greater understanding of the client-side.
4. Learn client-side vs server-side
Speaking of client-side, learn more. For example, read Rich Holmes excellent article (link in comments). Study frameworks like Angular. Then, study server-side tech. Learn about languages like PHP and stacks like LAMP.
5. Subscribe to Quastor
Now that you’re coding and understand system design concepts at a basic level, move up a step. Quastor covers how modern companies actually build & implement technical systems. It has great recent examples to read.
6. Pull data from an API
Now you’re ready to build something more real. Pull out some data from an API to get to learn more about the building blocks of modern internet systems. Choose something fun and interesting. Use your Python skills to derive some insights.
7. Build a side project
Now, you’re ready to go “full code.” You have the basic building blocks to pursue a side project. Get to work building a fully functional product. The level of control to all surfaces will give you a whole new take on PM too.
8. Keep building & learning
You’re probably at a middle or high school level compared to your engineers now. They did a whole degree in CS. Start to peruse some free online classes and understand the basic topics. Algorithms, data structures, systems - begin to “get it.”
9. Subscribe to the Pragmatic Engineer
The feather in your cap of technical fluency will be understanding what engineers care about. Gergely Orosz’s newsletter covers all the latest tech news relevant to engineers. It’s a great read.
10. Dive deep with your engineers
You’re ready to become a deeply technical PM. Start commenting on tech specs, speaking up in standups, and becoming next-level as a Deep PM.
Technical fluency is a lifelong journey, but these 10 steps will put you ahead of most PMs.