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Several Short Sentences About Writing

By Verlyn Klinkenborg

4 recommend/use · 4 sourced episodes

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Short attributed excerpts only. Timestamps are approximate.

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Answer the Question Behind the Question

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Give Your Gut Credit: Judgment-First Decision Making

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Re-establishing Product-Market Fit (Stacking S-Curves)

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Sales Then Logistics

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Signposting

Use structural cue-words to guide the reader through your writing without heavy formatting.

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Speak Accurately (Avoid the Single-Minded Martyr)

Match your stated confidence to your actual evidence — neither overreach nor over-hedge.

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Strategy Not Self-Expression

Feedback's goal is behavior change, so cut everything that doesn't serve it — usually 90%.

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The 10 Traits of Great Product Managers

A definition of what the PM job actually is — facilitation, execution, and impact — not a career ladder.

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The Bootstrapper's Constraint Discipline

Costs are the only thing you control — so stay small, do it yourself, and practice making money

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The Commodity Generic Play (ONCE)

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The Decision Log

Build product sense by logging decisions you'd make, the reasoning, and later the actual outcome.

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The Diversified Roadmap Portfolio

Treat a product roadmap like an investment portfolio, balanced across three axes of risk and intent.

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The Foundational Three Entry Path

Don't start in PM. Start as the person you'd be taking PM responsibilities from — engineer, designer, or seller.

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The Pilot Program for De-Risking Launches

Build a diverse champion network of real customers to test new features in the wild before you ever launch.

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Pay finalists to build something, then critique it and ask what they'd do with two more days

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The Stay-Up Scorecard

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The Swipe File

Capture examples of communication that work — the act of collecting trains your eye.

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The Tuning Fork Silent Read

Don't ask what people think — put something concrete in front of them and force a live, in-room read.

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The U-Curve of Founder Involvement

Involve a product-minded founder heavily at the start and end of a project, but give the team space to run in the middle.

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The Unsell Email

At offer stage, email the candidate the eight worst truths about the job — then see if they still say yes.

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