Duolingo’s Post

Product leaders tend to get stuck in debates, trying to convince stakeholders about what should be built. The best product managers influence others by leveraging clearly defined customer problems and insights. What this approach fails to address is that our opinions can be proved wrong in a second by real users. User data, product sense, historical data doesn't guarantee a feature will work. Users can tell you they loved a prototype and promised they will use a feature and never do. User behavior in real life trumps opinion. Always. This is why testing is critical. Focus on the biggest levers, and prioritize what you want to test but always: test often and test fast. Also don't forget that even the smallest part of the experience can have a significant impact. Duolingo saw an improvement of 6% in DAU by only adding a red dot on their notification tab (link in comments) #productmanagement #impact

A huge part of my journey in product was to gather inspiration. Too often, there’s the fallacy that everything we do must be a 0-1 untouched blue ocean. In my junior product years, this slowed me down many times, and I found myself isolated and operating in a vacuum. So, I’m making it my mission to remove the noise and distractions from Product and give back where I can. I’ve seen too much content intellectualising what we seek to achieve as product leaders. The lines have been blurred as we are starting to focus more on outputs (tools), rather than outcomes(think, application and integration -> ROI). Trying to catch up with AI, or the next shiny object? Chasing leaves on a tree vs understanding the roots structure (i.e. First principles thinking) is going to hurt you in the long run. There’s no hack, but that was just to get your attention in a sea of competing posts (the reality of fighting the algorithm). Back to my post: 🔹 Train your mind to see problems being solved🧠- more tangibly, when I’m out/even at home, I am constantly looking at products/services and identifying the problems being solved. There’s a bonus, for software product people, this gets your mind into the physical realm.

Did you know that Duolingo uses OKRs? Well, we believe they have some room for improvement. 🤔 Duolingo uses #OKRs to streamline how product teams plan and monitor their progress. 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐎𝐊𝐑𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬. Objective: Make Duolingo Stories the best product possible. KR 1: Talk to X number of users KR 2: Understand their pain points KR 3: Produce a document analyzing these pain points 𝐖𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝. 1. These KRs are very output-driven and resemble more of a task list rather than measurable key results. 2. 'Understanding pain points' isn't very measurable and could have different interpretations amongst team members, resulting in uncertainty. 3. Producing a document is a binary result. It's either complete or incomplete, making it difficult to measure. 4. Achieving these key results doesn't clarify whether or not the objective has been achieved. 𝐖𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 👇 KR 1: Increase the amount of Duolingo Story users from X to Y KR 2: Reduce Duolingo Story churn rate from X% to Y% KR 3: Decrease negative customer survey responses by X% These key results are more effective because they focus on outcomes, rather than outputs. The original KRs would become the actions that team members take to achieve these key results, and this time, their value and outcomes would be far more measurable and impactful. Does having a document of pain points from a certain number of users imply the objective has been reached and that Duolingo Stories is the best product possible? Probably not. But what's the value of creating that document? How are those pain points going to be used to actually make Duolingo Stories the best product possible? Asking and answering these types of questions can ensure that OKRs are their most impactful. 🙂 #Duolingo #ProductDevelopment #OKRConsulting #OKRCoaching

Have you ever struggled to maintain stakeholder buy-in during the product experimentation process? "Experimentation is all about building to learn." 🔍 Melissa Perri, "Escaping the Build Trap.” Some time back, our team embarked on a journey to adapt our product for a new audience—shifting from enterprise buyers to small businesses. The goal was to fend off competition and capture a new market segment. We started strong, focusing on understanding our persona and their jobs-to-be-done. But along the way, with the MVP, we lost sight of the critical question: “What do we need to learn next?” 🤔 Instead we simply launched an MVP to get the product out, without setting the learning expectations across the org. The launch was then held to impossibly high standards by executives and derided by the sales team as dead in the water. In a vacuum, they had set their own expectations, and it is near impossible to pull those back once set loose. Eight weeks in, we realized that our initial assumptions were off—we didn't yet have the right product fit for our persona. In fact, the persona might have been the wrong target to begin with. By then teams had lost interest and support eroded. The lesson? Never lose sight of learning. In product development, it's essential to keep iterating by ensuring a “build to learn” culture. Just as important, you need to align and build trust with stakeholders – to help them understand in our situation, as Melissa writes, that the MVP is “the minimum amount of effort to learn.” How do you ensure your team and stakeholders stay focused on learning throughout the product development process?

Fellow product managers (PMs): If there is one thing that you want to do to get better at the craft of product management, then carve out the time to spend 8 days with Shreyas Doshi's "Improving Your Product Sense" on the Maven platform. You know this is golden when product leaders and founders can't stop talking about this; when the same leaders recommend it to their teams (including me); and when you finish the course you DO NOT feel I paid too much for this. Life-long learning is essential and "student always" mindset helps get better. Wait no longer and dive deep into product sense, taste, and strategy. If you have any questions, then feel free to talk to me 1-1. Link: https://lnkd.in/gcwQb-Bw

🚀 Today's Daily Product Coach Thought Prompt: "How are you fostering a culture of experimentation in your product team?" By embracing a culture of experimentation, your product team gets to innovate and adapt quickly, ensuring you stay ahead in the competitive market. It's about continuous growth and keeping your edge sharp. Today's prompt from your Daily Product Coach encourages you to explore strategies for fostering a culture of experimentation within your product team. 🌟 Why is this Important? A culture of experimentation encourages curiosity, creativity, and risk-taking, enabling your team to explore new ideas, test hypotheses, and iterate rapidly. Here's why pondering this prompt holds significance: >Innovation and Learning: Experimentation fosters a mindset of innovation and learning, encouraging your team to explore new approaches, technologies, and solutions to challenges. >Adaptability and Agility: Embracing experimentation cultivates adaptability and agility within your team, enabling them to respond effectively to changing market dynamics, user needs, and competitive pressures. >Data-Driven Decision Making: Experimentation promotes a data-driven approach to decision-making, allowing your team to gather insights, validate assumptions, and make informed choices based on evidence and feedback. 🔍 Applying the Prompt in Your Situation: Here's how you can translate this prompt into actionable strategies for fostering a culture of experimentation in your product team: >Encourage Curiosity: Foster a culture of curiosity by encouraging team members to ask questions, explore new ideas, and challenge assumptions. Create opportunities for brainstorming, ideation, and knowledge sharing to stimulate creativity and innovation. >Celebrate Failure: It's going to happen. Normalize failure as a natural part of the experimentation process and celebrate learning opportunities that arise from it. Encourage team members to share their experiences, insights, and lessons learned from both successful and unsuccessful experiments. >Promote Collaboration: Foster collaboration and cross-functional teamwork by involving team members from diverse disciplines and perspectives in experimentation efforts. Encourage collaboration between product managers, designers, engineers, marketers, and data analysts to leverage their expertise and insights. >Iterate and Learn: Emphasize the importance of iteration and continuous learning in the experimentation process. Encourage your team to iterate rapidly, gather feedback, and refine their approach based on insights gained from experimentation outcomes. Ultimately, fostering a culture of experimentation is the cornerstone of building a resilient and adaptable product team. It's about more than just new ideas; it's about creating a dynamic environment where adaptability and continuous improvement are part of the DNA. #ProductManagement #Experimentation #Innovation #TeamCulture 🚀

🔍 Embracing Growth Mindset in Product Management: Key Insights from Satispay’s Weekly Experiment Review In the dynamic world of product management, fostering a growth mindset is pivotal for achieving sustainable and predictable growth. Drawing from Elena Verna's insights, here’s how implementing a weekly Experiment Review meeting can transform your team’s approach: 🚀 The Perception-Reality Gap: A Common Challenge Often, the initiatives we believe will drive results don’t deliver as expected. This gap stems from decisions driven by intuition rather than data and the influence of the highest-paid person in the room. Bridging this gap is crucial as companies scale. 🔍 Scientific Method: Your Best Ally Adopting a scientific approach to experimentation is essential. It involves: 1. Making observations. 2. Stating problems. 3. Developing and applying fixes. 4. Observing outcomes and iterating. 📊 Implementing the Experimentation Review: Sync & Async Async Rituals: - General Experiment Channel: For sharing test updates and feedback. - Experimentation Results Channel: For posting initial and final readouts of experiments. - # oh-shit Channel: Dedicated to discussing failures and learnings. Live Ritual: - Weekly Experimentation Review Meeting: A focused one-hour session to review experiment results, align on evaluations, and discuss insights. Key stakeholders, including growth, data, product, and marketing teams, should participate. 🔧 Building the Right Culture - Start with live rituals to build engagement, then introduce async components. - Encourage open discussions about failures. - Ensure visible support from leadership to maintain a culture that celebrates learning from failures. 💡 Conclusion By embracing this methodology, you’ll see your team referencing and learning from experiments they didn’t directly run, leading to a scalable and defensible growth strategy. Ready to close the perception-reality gap in your product management approach? Start your weekly Experiment Review meetings now! #ProductManagement #GrowthMindset #Experimentation #DataDriven #ContinuousImprovement

Last month, I started learning about Product Management Mental Models. It made me wonder how to make ship-worthy decisions in product development (speed is great, but quality matters too! ). I found out your decision depends on how sure you are about: - The problem's importance (are you REALLY solving a user pain point? ) - The solution's accuracy (will it actually fix the problem? ) Make sure your confidence comes from data and facts, not just feelings! Here's what I learned: > Not sure about the problem's importance? Prioritize speed - get out there and test quickly! > Sure about the problem AND solution? Go for quality - polish your product for an amazing user experience! > Unsure about the solution? Balance speed and quality - test different ideas quickly to find the best fit! Being confident about the problem you're solving is KEY! This guides your choices in product development - whether to go fast, focus on quality, or find a balance. What product development challenges are you currently facing? Let's discuss how mental models can help you navigate them in the comments below! #productmanagement #mental #health #product #management

*The Power of Direct User Research in Product Management* 🌍📊 During my recent user research on language preferences and the significance of English, I spoke with a person from the Middle East about the importance of learning English. He revealed that many in his region see English as a crucial tool for escaping war-torn areas and finding better opportunities in Western countries. This conversation highlighted the profound impact of global events like war on individual needs and aspirations. This experience reinforced the importance of Product Managers and Founders engaging directly with consumers. While surveys provide valuable data, direct conversations uncover deeper motivations and challenges that broad trends might miss. Global events have far-reaching impacts that can influence multiple industries. By talking directly with consumers, we gain insights that help us adapt our products to meet these evolving needs. Lastly, Kudos to tools like Duolingo Cambly Inc. who are addressing this major issue.

The only way to learn to swim is to get in the water. This old saying perfectly captures how we should approach experiments in product development. Before we dive in, here is some distraction: For a long time, I assumed rather blindly that my research background (with a PhD!) is a burden to carry in product management. No wonder, many who were in product roles at that time felt it too. I am sure I missed out opportunities because of this confirmation bias. But no regrets. I wouldn't have had it any other way. I came to realize much later the significance of an unassuming research-oriented mindset in product management. Every assumption must be tested with limited resources and the results thoroughly analyzed, with no fear of failure. If you were a PhD scholar, you will know an experiment is more often a failure than a success. What’s even more interesting is that you get to publish even those failures and be hailed for them. Back to our topic of the day… As soon as I realized the importance of experimentation in product management, I thought about the three rules almost all doctoral scholars follow. I drew parallels with product management and am presenting below . 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 1️⃣ 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹, 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗯𝗶𝗴 ✹ Break down large ideas into tiny experiments ✹ Test one feature at a time ✹ Keep track of what works and what doesn't 2️⃣ 𝗟𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀 ✹ Share early prototypes with a small user group ✹ Watch how they interact with the features ✹ Pay attention to their confusion points ✹ Ask for honest feedback 3️⃣ 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 ✹ Track user engagement ✹ Monitor AI accuracy ✹ Record response times ✹ Document user feedback 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲. Experiments often fail, and that's okay! Each failure teaches valuable lessons if we are willing to learn. Some of those lessons are nothing but answers to the following questions: 🔈What confused users? 🔈Where did the tech make mistakes? 🔈How can we make it better? 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗸𝗲𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀. Start with a simple prototype, then: ✅ Test it with real users ✅ Gather feedback ✅ Make improvements ✅ Repeat Think of it as building with LEGO blocks – add one piece at a time until you have something amazing. There is also a mindset that is needed to win. Here are the four things that you should be mindful of. ① Don't chase perfection in early experiments ② Keep good documentation ③ Share learnings with your team ④ Stay curious and creative The goal isn't to create perfect features, but to learn what works for your users and product. It is better to learn by experimenting than to fail without a clue. What do you say? #product #productmanagement #productleaders