🌊 Retention secrets & AI impact on product mgmt / PM Snacks 86

Retention curve’s flatness matters • The Duolingo Handbook • With AI, product management should thrive • You’re not behind: Become AI-Native in 2025 • Dispelling some myths about product mgmt

Feb 13, 2025

Hey everyone,

First, I’m planning to resume a monthly cadence for this newsletter. Hope you like it!

Second, on top of the best content I discovered (with my personal notes), I’ll now add an “unfiltered” section with only links, without additional input. I’ve a growing db of interesting content that never made the cut, but which could be interesting for some of you! Let me know what you think about it, just hit reply (yes, you can reply to these emails).

Please support this newsletter by sharing it with colleagues or liking it (tap on the 💙).

Enjoy!

🍭 5 snacks

1️⃣ Retention curve’s flatness matters • Aug 2024 • 6 min read • #data
This thread challenges conventional wisdom and goes deep into the mechanics of good retention, by showing that flattening a retention curve is the holy grail. That’s why Discord or Roblox have consistent growth despite “low” early retention. Be sure to open it to read all the gems, and even play with this free tool to forecast DAU and LTV.

2️⃣ The Duolingo Handbook • Feb 2025 • 12 min read • #culture
A pretty high-level piece worth skimming through. Keep in mind that Duolingo is a true product-led company, with great monetization (enabling the focus on long-term mission), great branding and data-driven culture. Some highlights:
- Their principles: Take the long view (“we’re creating a 100-year brand”, “we’re building long-term user retention first”), Raise the bar (“V1 not MVP”, “we hire exceptional people”), Ship it (“we run hundreds of experiments”), Show don’t tell (“when we disagree, we test ideas and let the metrics decide), Make It Fun (“built on play”)

Some ideas worth trying in our companies?
1/ “99 bad ideas” methodology for ideation of bold ideas (= asking ridiculous, unlikely questions)
2/ Monthly “Raise the Bar” sessions to critique designs and push for world-class quality
3/ Adapt their “green machine” framework (1. staff with great people, 2. define success, 3. set guardrails and think long term, 4. build and setup feedback loops, 5. execute with urgency and excellence, and 6. double down on what works, stop what doesn't).

3️⃣ With AI, product management should thrive? • Jan 2025 • 4 min read • #AI
By now, we can all see that our line of job (= building software products) is one of the first and most impacted by AI’s recent advancements. Andrew Ng believes it’s good news for product managers who lean into these new technologies:
- Increased automation of development actually amplifies the strategic importance of PM work: "the demand for people who can come up with clear specs for valuable things to build will grow." Some companies already stopped hiring developers like Gumroad who is going full in!
- Traditional Engineer:PM ratios may shift: product management and design work will become the new bottleneck as execution become cheaper and augmented/automated.
- Product managers should become AI proficient as soon as possible: leveraging these technologies to resolve the bottleneck to come, as well as integrating them into their products when relevant.

🤖 You’re not behind: Become AI-Native in 2025 • Jan 2025 • 10 min watch • #AI
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the AI news cycle? Then be sure to watch this quick video describing a “just enough” mindset and few ideas to become proficient with the tools that matter to you. The author shares tips on:
- Fighting AI tool choice paralysis. He even created an AI plan document to guide you.
- Better organizing prompts with text expanders and your own prompts database.
- A few trusted sources to stay on top of AI news (my favorite being the Superhuman daily newsletter).

⏳ The Product Manager’s survival kit Part 1: Dispelling some myths • Jan 2023 • 10 min read • #culture
Most clicked link one year ago in PM Snacks 69.
Valentin joined ManoMano only to find out that despite its renowned product culture, there were still a lot of issues to unpack… In order to get to the root cause, he started a year-long project to redefine what it means to be a PM in this specific company and wrote a series of article. I chose to share the first one for multiple reasons:
1/ It’s a good reminder that no company gets it right. If you feel like your company is chaotic compared to the ones featured in the links I publish here, remember that it’s not the whole truth.
2/ Among the many articles available, always prioritize the ones that share a behind-the-scene knowledge, the ones that start with why, and explain how they chose to address specific issues in their context.
3/ This first article already debunks some myths. My favorite: product management is not about user centricity.

🗄️ What I saved recently

Links that I saved but did not choose to highlight:
- Why Every Product Manager Building in AI Needs to Start Thinking About LLM User Analytics
- No one talks about the wasteful work of over-specialization […] with AI talent market, if you can call it that, becomes much more liquid.
- The Lindy PM Standard of Performance (shared with my notes in the previous edition)
- Most common questions asked by Des Traynor (CEO of Intercom) in product review meetings

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Thank you for reading this far.
Until next time!

Olivier

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About → Productverse is curated by Olivier Courtois (15y+ in product, Fractional CPO, coach & advisor). Each issue features handpicked links to help you become a better product maker.