“I just happen to have this data loaded in a tool called brain trust”
Braintrust
By Braintrust
2 recommend/use · 5 sourced episodes
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“This episode is brought to you by Braintrust where the world's most innovative companies go to find talent fast”
“visit usebraintrust.com Lenny or find them in my show notes for today's episode”
“visit usebraintrust.com Lenny or find them in my show notes for today's episode”
“this episode is brought to you by braintrust where the world's most Innovative companies go to find Talent fast”
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Belsky's Founder Bet Checklist
Back mission-driven, pragmatically pessimistic founders building products with a clear object model.
Binary Quality Calibration
Instead of documenting what 'quality' means, classify shipped work as high-quality or not — and let examples teach the bar.
Bundling Strategy by Growth Motion
When to bundle products and when a single-product land wins
Deliver Customer Value Faster with High Quality
One sentence, three measurable attributes — the motto that drives Miro's entire product reward and measurement system.
Do Half, Then Go on a Killing Spree
Build half the features, then remove things until the one core action runs at 10x velocity.
Error Analysis: Open Coding to Axial Coding to Count
Turn messy LLM logs into a prioritized list of failures before you write a single test.
Eval Triage: Decide What Actually Deserves an Eval
After counting failures, route each one to a prompt fix, a code check, or an LLM judge — not all three.
First to Hit the Brick Wall
In innovation, speed is the biggest determinant of success because you learn what doesn't work before anyone else.
Intuition-to-Automation Buildout for PLS
Build product-led sales as an evolution, not a revolution: intuition, then regression, then platforms.
Merchandise Progress Through the Messy Middle
Short-circuit the human reward system with agreed micro-goals and a narrated sense of progress.
Optimize for the Problems You Want to Have
Only build features that stop people from reaching the point where they'd ask you for more.
PQA Signal Detection
Find the exact usage signals that mean 'engage sales now' using users, volume, velocity, and behavior.
Press-Release-First Product Ideation
Write the launch press release before you build to keep products marketable
Product Accountability for Pipeline
Make product — not marketing — own PQA pipeline, with leaders on revenue and PMs on the KPIs that feed it.
P-Stage Cycle-Time Benchmarking
Stage-gate every initiative (PStrat→P0→P1→P2), size it S/M/L, and benchmark cycle time against yourself like golf.
Reading the Signals for Product-Led vs Sales-Led Growth
A decision tree for whether and when to hire your first salespeople
Rolling Roadmap with Precision Tiers
A six-month roadmap refreshed quarterly, with 80% commitment in months 1-3 and 50% in months 4-6.
The 10-Point Company Quality Checklist
Ten hard metrics to judge whether a company is worth betting your career on
The Aligned Binary LLM-as-Judge
Build a one-failure, pass/fail judge and align it to a human with a confusion matrix before you trust it.
The AMPED Cross-Functional Product Org
Redefine 'product org' as Analytics, Marketing, Product, Engineering, Design — all embedded in every stream.
The Benevolent Dictator Labeling Model
Appoint one trusted domain expert to own eval judgments instead of running it by committee.
The Chess-Points Competitive Lens
Every release is a move against your competitor in the customer's mind — positive or negative, never neutral.
The Conviction Test for Whether to Quit
Compare your conviction now versus at the start to decide whether to persevere or pivot.
The First Mile: Lazy, Vain, and Selfish
Design onboarding for the first 30 seconds, when every new user is lazy, vain, and selfish.
The Object Model: Three Questions Every Screen Must Answer
On every screen, a user should know how they got here, what to do now, and what to do next.
The Path to the C-Suite
Five career levers plus a work ethic that compound you into an executive
The Product-Led Sales Escalator
Convert self-serve usage into large enterprise contracts by bridging individual, team, and enterprise value.
The Three Cs of Accelerating Word-of-Mouth
Right people, right content, right communities to amplify organic growth
The Three Ingredients of Hypergrowth
Beloved product, viral word-of-mouth, and the ability to ride the lightning
The Three Lead-Attribution Channels (PQA / PQL / MQL)
Route leads by whether usage and a buyer exist, because each channel has different conversion rates and playbooks.
The Three Pillars of Self-Serve Monetization
Lift free-to-paid conversion by fixing awareness first, then checkout friction, then the model itself.
The Two-Persona Product Leader
Every product leader wears two hats: as a leadership-team member drive accountability; as a stream leader drive improvement.
The Unblock Virtuous Cycle
Teams don't want to move slow — they hit roadblocks; make leadership's job to clear them and speed compounds.
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