Blaine Burton

The hardest part of Product Ops isn't the work. It's the proximity. I was speaking to someone the other day in Product Ops and she said (very matter-of-factly): "If this rollout doesn't go well, I'm the one who's going to hear about it in the hallway and on Zoom calls." That hit hard because I've lived through that. The interesting thing about Product Ops (and a lot of platform teams) is your users are internal. These aren't abstract "customers." They're people you know. You hear how they talk about what they don't like. You're behind the curtain. So when you launch something you already know won't please everyone, you're also signing yourself up for some amount of angst. And it's not the same as external customers: → External users can just… not use your product. → Internally, people can actively resist a change, create shadow processes, route around the system, or quietly sabotage adoption. → On top of that, when people know you well, it's harder to enforce a new way of working without worrying you're going to sour the camaraderie you've built. Ops in a growing company is messy. There's always something someone doesn't like. People love to complain. And if you're the person closest to the friction, it can weigh on you. If you're in this position right now, here's my advice: Make it explicit what you're optimizing for. I see too many internal change efforts framed as "here's the new process" without the why. If people understand the underlying goal—speed, accuracy, compliance, fewer handoffs, better forecasting, cleaner data for leadership—they're far more likely to tolerate an extra step in their workflow. Example: "Yes, this adds a field." But also: "We need this data point because leadership is making decisions without visibility into X, and this is how we fix it." When people have context, they often shift from being a pain to being a champion—and you start getting real suggestions instead of drive-by complaints. It can be heavy carrying other people's disappointment. So open up the communication channels. Bring them into your thinking. You don't need everyone to love the change—but you do need them to understand the tradeoffs. Have you felt this tension with internal users—where the feedback loop is fast, honest… and personal?

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Very well said Gokul Rajaram. This can't be stressed enough. This goes for early stage founders too. You are the product manager. Founders fulfilling the roles of Product Managers in the early stages need to understand their customer before the customer is onboard. Your public facing website and marketing is all you have to speak to customers before they even decide to consider you. So speak well. Really well. Being in the middle of the resolution process will ensure you (the founder/PM) will make the right changes to your product in the next iteration cycle. Yes you can get analytics or feedback from your support team but as the person in charge of product you should know exactly where & how badly your product is pushing your customers away. Doubling down on customer commitment recognition is often overtaken by the comfort of locking them in. Instead it should put you in hyperdrive. Understanding what went right, its often something realized later on. Try to get the customer out of the curiosity phase and into clarity quickly. Both you and they will know if the product is a good fit or not and then allocate your time accordingly.

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Across the companies I've seen, the most common blockers of product *outcome* velocity are 1. unclear/unaligned/unfocused strategic context 2. structure/process that isn't based on cross-functional product teams with agency 3. teams are not working in a truly agile way (Note most execs would rank them in the opposite order.)

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New Dave's Quick Hits is up. Three stories with the same flaw. 1️⃣ Vitalik Buterin on why smart people justify terrible decisions with brilliant-sounding arguments. His test: if a scam could use the exact same reasoning, the argument tells you nothing. "Responsible acceleration" fails this test. So does "inevitable transformation." 2️⃣ OpenAI led a $15M seed into Red Queen Bio to evaluate whether AI bio capabilities are matched by adequate defenses. The structure: OpenAI builds the capabilities, funds the evaluator, and the evaluator judges if OpenAI is safe. That's like letting the developer inspect their own building. 3️⃣ A method to test 100 samples of a father's DNA before making an embryo. Cost: $20,000 (same as IVF today). Result: your daughter moves from 50th percentile to 90th for traits genes control. The argument that follows: "It's irresponsible not to optimize your child." The pattern: arguments that sound sophisticated but rule nothing out. They work equally well for a legitimate company, a scam, or the opposite strategy. Vitalik's test: would this feel safe if your enemy ran it instead of someone you respect? Rules only hold when they're set before capital shows up. After that, revenue bends every line. Full analysis: https://lnkd.in/gkKk-W2F #AI #Biotech #VentureCapital #Innovation #vibecap #vibecapital

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First iteration of ProductAlign is live and in the wild. Just shipped a new feature that lets you generate synthetic personas in seconds but Product align is more than that. I built it to help product managers align across stakeholders faster and build better products. New feature: Synthetic Personas. In the demo below, I show how you can instantly generate personas to ground your product discussions in real user context. Link in the comments if you want to try it out. Access currently limited to 12 tokens/day while I gather feedback. Let me know your thoughts! #productmanagement #pms

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Confidence might be the most underrated skill in product marketing. In the latest episode of Embracing Erosion, I sat down with Jason Oakley - founder of Productive PMM and DemoDash - to unpack how confidence (or the lack of it) shapes everything for PMMs. We talked about how founders can unintentionally erode confidence with unclear feedback or shifting priorities, and why protecting a PMM’s confidence directly impacts speed, clarity, and execution. We also got into: ⚙️ How to build systems before layering on AI and automation 🎯 Why interactive demos are some of the highest-intent assets in B2B 💪 What it really takes to thrive as a founding PMM in 2025/26 If you’ve ever been the “first marketer” or a PMM trying to do it all, this one will hit close to home. Link to the full pod in the comments 👇

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PM career ladders are rigged. Too many levels, checklists of 20+ items.  Way more complicated than the job actually is. You think: I need to hit all of these to get promoted.  Sometimes that’s intentional – one missing checkbox being enough to justify a no. I’ve always seen ladders more simply. Those checklists aren’t requirements. They’re tools. You almost never need all of them at once. Here is my POV: - APM: Ship what’sprioritized for you.  - PM: Ship relentlessly. Start prioritizing. Create impact. - Senior PM: Be a consistent impact machine. - Lead/Staff PM: Impact extends beyond your team. Others ship because of you. - Senior Staff PM: Set a long-term POV. Multiple teams ship your vision.       - Principle/Director: Drive multiple bets. Even that’s too many levels. In reality, there are three different jobs at best: PM → Lead → Director. AI companies probably to it best. Just the PM job.  Less roles in geral. Fewer games.  Pure impact. Curious how others see this. Am I way off?

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