Ship Happens, Week 3: Wartime vs. peacetime, layoffs, TikTok, audacity and getting what you wished for
Substack Live, join the chat, wartime vs. peacetime, layoffs, TikTok, audacity and getting what you wished for.
Happy Friday everyone! Welcome back to Ship Happens, your weekly product manager newsletter.
I'm using this newsletter to share at least three things l've come across this week to help you build better product. Subscribe so you don't miss these when they come out:
On to this week's thoughts and updates!
1. Should I do a Substack Live?!
Let me know below! I’m happy to answer any questions you have about product management, tech, strategy, A/B testing, getting ahead in your career, being a dad, whatever!
2. The chat is open for paid subscribers!
If you subscribe at $5/month or $50/year you can join the chat, get to know some new folks, share what you’re struggling with and get some answers from yours truly!
Again, any and all questions or problems are fair game.
3. Wartime vs. Peacetime
We are back from our fluffy little holidays for two weeks now. By this point those holidays are a distant memory and you are back in the trenches.
Some of you might be getting shot at more than others. Layoffs, tough business environment, tough comps that the board and your investors are going to judge you against. And you were LITERALLY just in your pajamas singing that Mariah Carey song. What the hell?! It’s all a haze.
When times are tough, wartime leadership usually kicks in. It’s different than leadership in peacetime:
The threat level is high, so the level of urgency is through the roof. Seconds can cost you everything.
Emotions are running hot, and the tolerance for mistakes is very low because everything counts.
Speed is paramount, it can literally mean the difference between a big earnings pop and a 30% layoff.
So if you’re coming back to work and are wondering wtf is going on, why does everything seem like life or death? Then you are likely in wartime, and the stakes are much higher. So what should you do?
Be a great follower. Have you heard the phrase “in order to be a great leader, you need to learn how to be a great follower”? It’s the truth! And it’s never more true than it is in wartime. Shoot your gun and duck like the general said so you don’t die.
Don’t be the blocker. This will save you a ton of pain. If you are just not in the way, you’ll be surprised how much will get done.
Take your shots. I talked about this last week, but 10-15% of your launches are going to be successful. So if this is a matter of survival, you have to go big and get to launching to get to those winners faster.
Speaking of layoffs…
4. If you didn't know, the music is still stopped
Meta just announced a 5% performance-based layoff. It’s easy to buy into the hype that the worst is over and we’re ready to get on that rocket ship! 🚀 But unfortunately things are still pretty clunky out there.
The best thing to do, especially as a product manager, is keep shipping, keep delivering results. Regardless of if the company you’re at goes under or not, your results will be important. Either to prove your worth to stay at your current gig or to accomplish something big that you can use to get your next opportunity.
5. My thoughts on TikTok that no one asked for
I’m really sad about the potential loss of TikTok. It’s looking more and more likely. I’m sad that the place where I met so many folks subscribed here will no longer exist, even if a buyout happens by a US entity.
But I will say a few things:
I feel like our local tech giants have gotten pretty lazy. Meta, Google, etc. should be able to reverse-engineer what’s working, build the community, maybe even launch a separate app copycat that does what TikTok does best. Why hasn’t this happened? Why are the creator tools so lacking? Maybe there will be one soon, but a thriving competitor could have been found and it just didn’t happen.
Yes, I don’t consider Instagram a true competitor. Sure, it does many things like TikTok does. But the new discovery mechanism, more positive community building, all that stuff has not been replicated. Instagram is more negative, harder to post on, and harder to get discovered if you’re not famous already or create super high quality content.
Without the algorithm, TikTok is an empty asset and they have no intention of selling. I know this is out there, but I don’t think a sale is happening. And even if it is, it’s a big mistake. ByteDance has already been clear that no sale would include the algorithm. You’re buying a user base, but why would that use base stick around without the magic of the algo? MAYBE you can keep the good community stuff and reverse-engineer the algo? But it’s just not valuable enough, and I think ByteDance knows it.
6. Audacity and success go hand in hand
This is the TRUTH. Go big or go home. I know I keep referring to that 10-15% win rate, but it’s a great framework. I love it because it forces you to think about being audacious…you have no choice but to be! This is a great and really captures why being audacious is so important.
7. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it
Finally y’all, I stumbled across this article…not only is it completely bananas, but there’s power in the author’s message about reaching the goal you’ve set out to achieve for years and then feeling rudderless after you achieve it.
A brief story, my first got at Vrbo I wrote down as my goal that I wanted our travel apps to be top 5 in the app store in the Travel category.
It turns out, with a lot of effort, we made it into the top 5! SEVEN YEARS LATER.
Once that happened, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with my energy and effort. Lots of things felt pointless or that I was just going through the motions. But then new challenges surfaced and I jumped right in.
So moral of the story, the oldies were right. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it…
That's it for this week!
If you've found this helpful, please consider showing your support by subscribing:
And please consider becoming a paid subscriber at $5/month or $50/year. I'm going to start sharing things like my resume template, resume reviewer for paid subscribers only. So consider going paid to get some of those great benefits.
Finally, share with someone else that you think would find this useful:
I’ll be back around this time next week with more useful product manager things!