Faire

Adjacency-and-Network Expansion Test

Prioritize marketplace expansion by adjacency and network reinforcement, not by the size of the adjacent TAM

Assemble Spikes, Not Well-Rounded People

Hire sharp, complementary spikes instead of developing everyone into generalists

Assume the Disruptor Is Right

During an existential threat, assume the disruptor is playing an optimal game and respond with overreaction

Entrepreneurship4 steps

Consumer Subscription Viability Test

Freemium-plus-paid-acquisition consumer subscriptions fail without ~60-70%+ retention or a network effect

Finance3 steps

Dual-Sided ROI Equation

Price each acquisition to include the cost of acquiring the other side it needs, then push to your payback threshold

Execution Beats Strategy

Perfect strategy with poor execution teaches you nothing. Good-enough strategy with perfect execution compounds.

Influence5 steps

Expand, Don't Shrink

Insert a step between receiving feedback and acting on it — then answer it by adding tools, never by getting smaller.

Communication6 steps

Feeling-First Product Metaphor

Pick the feeling, name where you last felt it, and let the metaphor make a thousand small decisions for you.

Leadership4 steps

Founder Intuition vs Team Expertise Handoff

Delegate to hires only once they consistently make better calls than you would — and signal in both directions

Happy GMV and Minimum Viable Happiness

Track only the GMV that produced a retained customer, and boil the thimble until it clears the bar

Productivity3 steps

Homogenize the Early Experience for Retention

Move retention by fixing unlucky bad first experiences, not by nudging people about to churn

Impact Above All Else: The Two-Question Priority Loop

Two daily questions, driver-mapping, and back-of-envelope math before any project earns your time

Communication4 steps

Inquiry Over Advocacy

Dial up questions, dial down your case — then check if you still disagree

Kill NPS, Ask CSAT

NPS is the marketing industry marketing itself — a satisfaction question has better data properties.

Mindset5 steps

Leader Emulators

Build runnable models of the sharpest people you've worked with, then boot the right one when you're stuck.

Let Fires Burn (with Three Never-Burn Exceptions)

Agree which problems you let burn this week — and the three that never can

Macro / Middle-Range / Micro Research Portfolio

Sort every research question into three altitudes and starve the middle one that eats your team's time.

Innovation5 steps

Manufactured Chaos: The Artificial Time Constraint

When things feel too calm, inject an absurd deadline to force intuition and creative leaps

Innovation4 steps

Markets as Currents, Not Bodies of Water

Chase the change dynamic pulling the market, not the size of the market

Influence5 steps

Poke the Bear

Never self-censor — but poke only after the homework, and only with data

Marketing3 steps

Product-Led SEO

Treat SEO as a product you build for the search user, not content you optimize for a keyword.

Programmatic vs Editorial Decision Rule

Go programmatic only where scale meets a real use case — otherwise you scale nothing.

Self-Mastery5 steps

Putting On the Coat of the Job

Run the spreadsheet, then tear it up — and simulate a Tuesday in the job instead.

Entrepreneurship4 steps

SaaS-Marketplace Transition Test

A SaaS business can add a marketplace only if it touches its customer's customer and those customers need multiple suppliers

Leadership4 steps

Scenario-Based PM Interviewing

Interview PMs by making them do the real job under real constraints, not recite prepared stories

SEO Conversion-Metric Rigor

Rankings and traffic are not results. Hold SEO to the same efficiency standard as paid.

Productivity3 steps

Ship-to-Learn Research Allocation

Reserve scarce user research for high-uncertainty, high-leverage problems; ship to learn everywhere else

The Anti-Sell: Hiring by Describing the Worst Day

Tell candidates the worst day at your company in full detail — then ask if they still want to join

Influence4 steps

The Business-Fluency Scalpel for Researchers

Learn the company's financial language so your insights land in the funnel, not in a deck.

Leadership6 steps

The Dinosaur Brain Product Review

Executives hold three facts. Bring a recommendation, not a catalogue — and leave with principles, not answers.

The Dogfooding Boundary Rule

Use your own product walkthrough to generate the issue list — never to prioritize it.

The Embedded Insights Partner Model

Success metric: they won't have the meeting without you.

Communication5 steps

The Fascinating Reframe

Convert the visceral urge to be right into a question that harvests the information you're missing.

Leadership4 steps

The Five Tools Researcher

A modern researcher carries five methods, not one — and you hire for the Swiss army knife.

The Four Marketplace Health Metrics

Track GMV, unit economics, liquidity, and share of wallet to know if a marketplace is truly healthy

Marketing3 steps

The Funnel-Position Defense Against AI Overviews

AI answers eat top-of-funnel search. Move your SEO to where intent and conversion live.

Mindset3 steps

The Gardener Mindset for Marketplaces

Run a marketplace like a gardener with a light touch, not a construction worker building linear features

Strategy6 steps

The Growth Model Building Blocks

Build a spreadsheet formula of how your business grows, layer by layer, to find your real levers

Self-Mastery4 steps

The Gut-Check Protocol

Intuition is pattern matching and bias in the same organ — check it with System 2 and diverse guts.

The Hierarchy of Engagement

Three stacked levels — core action, accruing benefits, self-perpetuation — that decide if a consumer product endures

Entrepreneurship5 steps

The Hierarchy of Marketplaces

Focus, tip, dominate — the only sequence that produces a marketplace worth owning

The Hill Climb

Name whether you're optimising a local hill or crossing the valley to a bigger mountain — then price the valley.

The Marketplace Fragmentation Test

A marketplace only works if the market is fragmented and the per-transaction dollars are small enough to keep it in the middle

The SEO Go/No-Go Investment Test

SEO is not free. Price it fully, then compare it against every other growth channel.

Self-Mastery6 steps

The Serenity Prayer and the Discard Bucket

Two rituals for perfectionists: the Serenity Prayer, and a bucket you cannot un-bin

The Three Network Effects (and Why Social Products Must Evolve)

Classify defensibility as direct, cross-side, or data network effects — and know social products must add the latter two

The Tippability Test

Check supply fragmentation, supply heterogeneity and incumbent competition before you fund a marketplace

Innovation4 steps

Three Ways to Find Marketplace Whitespace

Unbundle a low-NPS segment, own an ignored niche, or change the atomic unit of supply

Marketing5 steps

Tipping Loops: Growth Loops and Happiness Loops

Two symbiotic loop types — one grows the marketplace, one keeps it happy as it grows

Leadership6 steps

Toddler Soccer Goal Detangling

Goal every team on the same output metric and they swarm the ball. Detangle the customer journey into lanes.

Productivity4 steps

Top-Down / Bottoms-Up Core Action Analysis

Cross two analyses — return-propensity ranking and product purpose — to find the one action worth optimising

Top-Down TAM SEO Forecast

Forecast SEO from market size down, not from keyword-tool volumes up.

Mindset4 steps

User-Centered Performance Detector

Spot the rituals where a team signals customer obsession without any intent to change the decision.

Vertical Unbundling Criteria

Only carve a vertical out of a horizontal marketplace if it has high value or frequency and a self-contained network