Kevin Yien @kevinyien Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Kevin Yien

@kevinyien

9,145

Followers

279

Following

877

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9,582

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product @stripe • thinking out loud • made of 🍦 • random ideas ( #sparkfile )

Austin, TX

https://t.co/VmraxvBQvK

Joined February 2012

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

Your career is not a ladder, it's a game. Those who treat it like ladder will make linear progress at best and let their fear hold them back. Those who treat it like a game will collect the resources, find the people, and build the skills that compound — and have fun doing it!

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

I still hold the strong opinion that every company should have a team that teaches new hires how to be experts in the primary tools used at the company (e.g. Gmail, Slack, Docs, Jira, Notion). And I'm not talking a few keyboard shortcuts here and there. I'm talking top 1%.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 years

Timing is everything. I ran a 100-person product team at Square and believe fintech was the best place to be in the last decade. When I decided to leave, I evaluated 20+ industries. To my surprise, I landed in martech. Here's why martech is about to have its "fintech moment":

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 years

Sometimes the internet can be a really neat and kind place

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

Learned the new "status" job for college grads is VC. This is wild to me. Call me old-fashioned, but have always recommended building something first to understand the fundamentals. Then move into PM if the next level of abstraction is interesting. Investing is level after that.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

Thought this was a fake account at first. Then I scrolled down. Well played @patrickc .

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

A simple mistake many PMs make is thinking the product = the UI. Every touchpoint matters — website, emails, ads, reviews, support calls. You need to care about everything that impacts how your customer perceives or interacts with your product (even when you aren't responsible).

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

Today marks 4 years at Square. It is absolutely wild to think it's been that long and that this company took a bet on me back then. I often get asked why I'm still here. There are a lot of reasons. But it comes back to our sellers. Here's a story from this year that sums it up...

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 months

Life update: I'm joining @stripe as Head of Product for Merchant Experiences! That just means if you have feedback about Stripe Dashboard (or the mobile apps), you can complain directly to me now :) Beyond excited to level up the craft, beauty, and quality with this crazy team.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

Wife: can I say something? Me: okay... Wife: our gov is failing us. we need the next president to be a product manager. Me: are you saying I should run? Wife: no, like a good product manager.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 months

Jensen's fireside chat at Stripe Sessions is a rare instance where it feels like he's just telling stories about how he views things. A few standout points:

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

My favorite original @Square value was "Give it soul" — I'll never forget it. Square gave me everything. And I gave it everything. After 5 years of building soulful products and teams, it's time for me to go back to square one.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

1 month

Day 1

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 months

[New Post] Sales is Research

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

This is such a good example of paying it forward. The CTO of Shopify saw a tweet from an up and coming founder ( @Austen ), wanted to help him, and decided to post his response online for everyone to see. Wish more people did this.

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Shopify - How we Get Shit Done

Tried to explain "why" and "what" we built to track and collaborate on work at Shopify.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

1 month

Observations after week 1 at Stripe: - mission is palpable - people are ambitious yet humble - onboarding is impressive - internal tooling is insane - there’s so much to do!!

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

The onboarding playbook by @nikitabier

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Kevin Yien

3 years

New life achievement unlocked! Wife is an engineer. PM at her company said they should start using this PRD template other teams have been using. It was my PRD template. I rarely get to see her that annoyed. I have successfully infiltrated her work life 😂

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

1 year

My PRD template is getting a lot of share requests all of a sudden. Curious if it was featured somewhere recently? If anyone knows, let me know. I have some updates to it.

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kevinyien: PRD Template

[Project Name] [one-line description] Team: [Awesome] Contributors: [PM], [Designer], [Engineer], [Analyst] Resources: [Designs], [Analytics], [Notes] Status: Draft / Problem Review / Solution Review...

docs.google.com

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 years

Product managers often ask for more time for "strategic thinking". The reality I've come to is that no one will give you that time. You need to proactively set time aside (literally on your calendar). You need multi hour blocks that you won't cheat on.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 years

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

1 year

Taste is going to become the most important "skill" very quickly

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Kevin Yien

3 years

I would pay an unreasonable amount of money to view a timelapse of any company's org structure (bonus for the emails that came with every change)

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

Common complaint: "My team isn't moving fast enough!" Common response: "We need a better tool to track our work." It's almost never the tool. It's almost always the process. The pace of development will match the clarity of the priorities.

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Kevin Yien

2 years

The reaction someone has when you share something you worked on says a lot about the culture 1/ wait...why wasn't I included earlier? who told you to work on this? 2/ woah...this is awesome! thanks for tackling. can i help?

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

5 years

So many of my calls with students revolve around breaking into PM. I know three ways that work for different types of people: 🏢 join APM program 🚀 join startup and hustle (me) 🦎 switch from adjacent role There is surprisingly little online - might write something

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

Every product manager trying to describe how they became a product manager

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Kevin Yien

4 years

When startups less than 20 people reach out about PM roles, I give the same response every time — "You don't need a PM yet".

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 years

Contraversial take (?): most interfaces should be analog / hardware instead of touch Key offenders: - refrigerators - microwaves - toasters - remotes - watches - safes Give me real buttons, knobs, switches, and levers!

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

Reminiscing with my wife about how much time we used to waste finding cover art for songs/albums for iTunes. The Spotify Generation has no clue.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

1/ The old Reid Hofffman saying is "if you aren't embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late". It still holds today but I want clarify some things I've learned over the years.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

As a product organization grows, the scope of a PM or designer tends to become more isolated. This is natural. But there is a dangerous tendency to let that isolation impact how you build product. This is the Perfect Frame Problem and it stinks 🧵

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

I don't know what's in the water at AngelList, but I like it: • Rolling Funds (Feb'20) • Access Fund (Mar'20) • Transfers (Sep'20) • Recurring Transfers (Dec'20) • Roll Up Vehicles (Mar'21) • Venture Edu Center (Jun'21) • No Fee RUVs (Jul'21) • Deal Partners (Jul'21)

@AngelList

AngelList

3 years

Announcing Deal Partners: Flexible partnerships for modern funds Funds can now share carry on individual deals with anyone, for identifying great companies & securing an allocation. It’s a flexible way to add partners to a fund, on a deal-by-deal basis.

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Kevin Yien

2 years

I came up with a simple framework to think through this question. It came down to 3 things: 1. Uneven playing field 2. Neglected user experience 3. Proprietary and valuable data set Let's break each down.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 years

This framework helped me decide to join Mutiny. It also convinced the best design leader I knew in fintech to join Mutiny — 👋 🧢 @maccormier Now we're looking for impact-focused designers and PMs to build an iconic product and team together.

Mutiny Careers | Remote Engineering, Product & Sales Jobs | Mutiny

See what makes Mutiny special and check out open remote career opportunities.

www.mutinyhq.com

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Kevin Yien

4 years

Counterintuitive observation: building something on your own (e.g. site, app) makes you a better product manager more than a better engineer or designer

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Kevin Yien

3 years

[New Post] Finding Your Swagger This was a tough one to write. Few people know the story. And I feel weird sharing it. But I hope it can help someone.

Finding Your Swagger

This is a story about a time I lost my swagger.

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Kevin Yien

2 years

Wish it was more common for PMs to "pair" like engineers (and increasingly designers). Seeing how someone else thinks and breaks down a problem (in real-time) can be an extremely efficient format of osmosis.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

15 days

Stripe has built *a lot* in the last few years. But the Dashboard nav didn't keep up. So we did some spring cleaning and I gotta say, it feels nice (especially the lil bounce in the dropdowns). Much more to come across the Dashboard but if you have any feedback, shoot me a DM.

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Kevin Yien

3 years

A big part of product management is simply deciding to not build all the obviously good ideas, so you can focus on the few that really matter

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 years

It would be hilarious, wild, and apt if @elonmusk acquired @nikitabier (and Gas app team) Reference: the most entertaining outcome is the most likely

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

So that's why I love working at Square. That's why I've worked so hard the past 4 years. And why I will continue to pour my heart into this company. Small businesses are perfect.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

1 year

2015: i’m not ready for kids 2016: first kid, first girl 2019: second kid, second girl 2020: we're done 2021: we’re done… 2022: we're done…? 2023 (today): third kid, third girl i’m one lucky dad 🥰

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

PRD template for those who haven't seen it before. Caveats: - I have a few updates planned later this year - does not apply to every type of product - should evolve with the project - etc...

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kevinyien: PRD Template

[Project Name] [one-line description] Team: [Awesome] Contributors: [PM], [Designer], [Engineer], [Analyst] Resources: [Designs], [Analytics], [Notes] Status: Draft / Problem Review / Solution Review...

docs.google.com

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Kevin Yien

2 years

@shreyas There are times for pragmatism. There are times for boldness. Don't let the pragmatic decisions of today deflate the boldness of your designs for tomorrow. We need design to always aim higher.

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Kevin Yien

4 years

My path as a PM: - bus boy @ 14 ($7.25/hr) - food expo @ 15 ($12/hr) - lab asst @ 20 ($1k/mo) - arduino junkie @ 21 ($300/wk) - failed founder @ 22 ($0) - startup first hire @ 23 ($79k) - first PM job @ 25 ($125k) - Square PM @ 27 ($120k) - other stuff at Square @ 30

@fahdananta

Fahd Ananta

4 years

My path as a PM: - McDs cashier @ 21 ($9.75/hr) - PM intern @ 22 ($4.5K/mo) - Math tutor @ 23 ($25/hr) - Sold first co @ 24 (Got the 💰) - First PM job @ 26 ($100K) - Shopify PM @ 27 (📈) - Snap PM @ 31 No such thing as timeline for life. Your journey is defined by only you.

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Kevin Yien

2 years

Every time I see the Nike principles I think "I should hang those on my wall". Then I get too lazy to find a frame. So I finally decided to just print and tape it to my wall. They are so good and somehow always timely.

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Kevin Yien

2 years

Time to finally share what my next adventure is... I jumped back into the startup game and joined @mutinycorp to lead product and design 😈 🦝 💫

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Kevin Yien

3 years

Most backlogs should be treated more like a mood board than a to-do list

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Kevin Yien

2 years

The terms "senior" and "staff" have all but lost their meaning on LinkedIn

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Kevin Yien

2 years

Love this from @GustavS on the "sport" of building products

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Kevin Yien

5 months

at some point in time every b2b saas product is tempted to build a “dashboard” that is a feed of everything you need to do (a magical todo list if you will). this is a trap! users don’t want it and it’s a massive waste of your time. it’s just a nice ego stroke.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

If I ever manage to start and grow a company beyond 100 people, I want to hire a Head of Learning. Unlike typical L&D, they will be responsible for teaching people *how to learn*, not what to learn. They will teach system, not content. They will be part of every onboarding.

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Kevin Yien

3 years

I don't know how to measure this but know it would be worth its weight in gold. And it just keeps compounding 📈

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

23 days

Too many PMs are comfortable interacting with users through “bent glass”. Reading notes and research reports are great. But you need to talk to users yourself. Do both. People hear different things despite the same words being said.

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Kevin Yien

4 years

Changelogs are an underused concept outside of engineering. I make one for every PRD. And they always save the day. Why did we make this decision? When did we change that behavior? Who knows more about it? Check the changelog.

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Kevin Yien

4 years

The essential job of a PM is to drive clarity. This applies to the problem, customer, solution, you name it. The common misconception is that the more senior you become, the less you focus on the details. The reality is that you simply get better at changing altitudes/contexts.

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Kevin Yien

4 years

Google Tables will be an automatic smash hit - teams default to G Suite tools today - intentionally flexible to be "hacked" in diff ways - no extra $ (bundling economics in action) - already approved by IT - familiar UI (even if a bit sterile) People will dunk but it will work

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

I moved (just north of) Austin, TX! Having grown up in the Midwest, started a career in the Bay Area, and started a family in New York, I am pretty darn excited to plant my roots in a place that feels like it combines the best of each.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

An incomplete list of things I wish I knew before becoming a product manager...

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

I am over the moon with our launch of Square KDS today. Kitchen printers haven't evolved for decades. Now restaurants can seamlessly manage orders from anywhere — pickup, delivery, in-person. This couldn't have come at a more important time. So proud of this team.

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Kevin Yien

1 year

It's such a weird time in to be a PM in B2B SaaS. Everyone is expected to build AI into their product, even if the incremental value might be less than another non-AI feature. And everyone is doing variations of the same prompts (draft, summarize, analyze). Still so early.

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Kevin Yien

6 months

There's a part of me that feels like the role of product management is undergoing a reshaping, and most leaders likely need to reacclimate themselves with the nuts and bolts of what's possible today to be relevant in a few years

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

1 year

searching linkedin and seeing 4 different pms declaring themselves as head of product for the same feature at a bigco

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Kevin Yien

2 years

0-1 work is overrated Too many PMs claim to be good at (or enjoy) 0-1 work. Most haven't done actual 0-1 work or have but not successfully. The majority actually want to do 1-n work, but with more agency. And that's the majority of actual work to be done.

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Kevin Yien

2 months

At a certain point in your career, you switch from looking for whatever you can get to you-shaped roles. It’s a privilege but an important transition. It's where your (specific) collective experiences can be applied in the most potent ways. It's where your best work happens.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 years

List of "silly" things that make you better in remote cultures - hyping work on behalf of others - fixing typos while no one is looking - witty slack emojis - zingers in the zoom chat - random dms to say “you did great”

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

1 year

The person responsible for your employment is not responsible for your career. Said differently, learn what you can from your manager, but don't expect them to shape you into the person you want to become.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

Situation: This key metric has flatlined. Bad PM: How can we get it to go back up? Emails? Good PM: What is wrong with the product / experience? Do not succumb to Goodhart's law. Focus on the customer.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

Shopify leadership is on point right now

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 months

Part of the job as head of product that is never listed on the job description but ends up being crucial to the role is being an emotionally objective countermeasure to the founders (often related to sunken cost). This can be features, people, strategy, or positioning.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

13 days

what caring about the details looks like 9:20am pm reports “bug” where element has focus ring when clicked that overlaps with hover state background 9:23am eng says “oo lmc — thanks!” 10:37am designer adds context and proposed fix for component 2:51pm eng deploys fix

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 months

"if you can see it then we can create an API for it" This is a *really* powerful concept that is likely to change how a lot of software is thought about / built. It's a sibling to @Altimor 's metaphor of the Industrial Revolution for software. UIs as APIs — pay attention

@joshm

Josh Miller

2 months

this is thanks to wild work that @Connor , @codeblue87 , & @vivekgalatage did at the unique position of the browser layer in the software stack. we auto create APIs based on structured data from webpages and applications. "if you can see it then we can create an API for it."

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Kevin Yien

2 years

A strong leading indicator on culture in startups is the enthusiasm veterans have when welcoming newbies

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Kevin Yien

5 months

One of the hardest (but most needed) parts of developing a good product strategy is the willingness to sit with extreme discomfort and anxiety for an undetermined amount of time

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 years

The next decade will be different for fintech. The winners are named, the upside is capped, and the space has shifted from invention to iteration. Yet the best talent is still pouring into this space. Instead, the best talent should be looking for "the next fintech".

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

He wanted to tell me about the week. He pivoted his entire business to online pickup. He made payroll for all his staff. And he made more sales than the prior week. Then he said those magical words. "Thank you"

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Kevin Yien

2 years

First, some context on what happened in fintech. Let's rewind to 2010. - No trust in financial institutions - The space was fragmented - Tools were antiquated - Brands were bland - Talent was sparse Payments and banking were where innovation and creativity went to die.

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Kevin Yien

3 years

Am I oversimplifying things? Or can we stop with the zero sum thinking when it comes to education?

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Kevin Yien

4 years

Underrated skill: knowing when to present information as prose, lists, tables, or diagrams

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Kevin Yien

9 months

Every PM needs to launch something without using any templates (e.g. PRD, launch plans). I get why PMs early in their career want them. They think the structure is the secret. But you need to go through the raw shaping yourself to get any real value from a template.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

Resumes these days...

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Kevin Yien

2 years

Actually knowing what you want (in life, in a career) is way harder (and rarer) than most will admit

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

When @lennysan features your PRD template in his newsletter

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Kevin Yien

1 year

ugh there are too many things about the website to like figma tabs for other products dock for other design apps (swoon) drawing a button that becomes the actual cta galaxy background swapping to cta on hover share linking to twitter and careers page

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Kevin Yien

4 years

Engineers learn how to navigate text editors using only the keyboard so the operation of the tool doesn't interfere with their thought process. PMs should do the same with Google Docs (Cmd+1/2/3 for heading, Cmd+8 for list, Cmd+M for comment, Opt+Shift+<> to highlight).

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Kevin Yien

3 years

A: I am a first principles thinker B: Cool. Now tell me why you made that product decision? A: Oh, because I saw it work for a competitor B: 😑

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Kevin Yien

2 years

You know you are no longer a startup when your org structure prevents well-intentioned people from fixing problems

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 years

1. Uneven playing field OLD: Restrict growth eng to tech giants like Uber, leaving the rest to cobble 90+ tools to convert their marketing spend into revenue. MUTINY: Bring the power of growth engineering to anyone with no-code tech. Mutiny is making everyone good at growth.

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Kevin Yien

5 months

It is truly astonishing how many product teams are fully dedicated to improving parts of a product that do not matter to the customer or business

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

The best product teams are on a road trip together 🚗💨 Everyone has a shared destination in mind. Everyone gets a chance to drive. Let's dig into what a great trip looks like ↓

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

11 months

building something people want and building a business that wins are different things at the end of the day. a lot of confusion and disappointment stems from thinking they are the same.

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Kevin Yien

1 year

I have an increasingly different definition of product management than the norm. The role of a PM is to maximize the potential of their team (in service of the customer and business).

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Kevin Yien

8 months

The main problem I see with JTBD is teams using them to rephrase tasks. They are useful in framing what a team should solve, but detrimental at lower altitudes. I promise you there is no JTBD to make a button easier to find.

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

3 years

Am I doing this right?

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Kevin Yien

1 year

Realization: the most successful teams I've been on had more designers than product managers (eg there were 3 designers to me as the only PM at Square) The reverse (or even a 1:1 ratio) usually means that neither are able to fulfill their potential

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 years

Fast forward to 2020. The revolution was complete. Square and Stripe became the darlings of tech. When I worked at Square, we attracted the best product, design, engineering, and data talent. The most boring industry became the "cool kid".

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Kevin Yien

2 years

Positive signal that you are doing well as a product manager: Decisions seem obvious when shared with others in the company This is because you have been sharing context so much (and so clearly) along the way that almost nothing else would make sense

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

2 years

For the past year, I wrote a sticky note everyday with something I love about my wife and put it on her desk in the morning. Today, she said "okay I get it, you love me", showed me the pile she's been saving up, told me to stop, and threw them away. Mission accomplished!

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@kevinyien

Kevin Yien

4 years

I just showed my 4yo daughter this picture of Kamala and said she is going to help heal and lead the country. Her: "Wooow...can I do that too?" Me: "You better believe it."

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