Happy New Year! Before I jump back into leveraging AI to build successful products, I have a post-Christmas gift list of things Santa didn't get you for Christmas, but should gift yourself in 2025.
Game-Changing Investments for Product Leaders
Improving Your Product Sense Course
This course is more than just career transforming - it's mindset shifting for life. Shreyas Doshi cuts through a lot of the BS in the Product Management world to give high-signal content focused on making you more successful at building products and the companies behind them. Being part of the first cohort showed me just how much this course can level up your product thinking. This course challenged my thinking, my habits, and made me confront the things I do that aren’t “high leverage” in terms of making the products I work on successful. I still have plenty to learn, but I'm much better equipped for the lifelong journey thanks to this course. I still reference the notes regularly and practice the exercises I learned in this course. If there is only one course you could take in your lifetime as a Product Manager, this is it.
Forging Titans: Achieve Outlier Performance as a Leader
Dr. Julie Gurner helps you cut through your own BS that's blocking you from becoming more. Her 1:1 coaching has quite the waitlist and isn't cheap, but this course gives you access to her key principles in a more accessible way. It helped me reframe a lot of thoughts that were holding me back, and I've unlocked more of what I really want since taking it.
Must-Have Resources
Stratechery Subscription
Stratechery is one of my favorite newsletters. With tech and business changing at lightning speed, especially in the age of AI, it helps me stay on top of industry shifts. While it doesn't always break news on the latest technologies (I hit Twitter for that), it provides deep, thoughtful perspectives rather than hot takes. It's essential reading if you want to understand how industry giants are evolving their strategies around existing products, new products, and competition in our rapidly changing AI landscape.
A Coach
If taking a class is like buying a new tool, hiring a coach is like having an experienced artisan show you how to use those tools masterfully. Think of it as the difference between taking a Bob Ross painting class vs having Michelangelo hone your skills 1:1. This January, my Product coach and I are celebrating our two year anniversary together, and it's elevated my craft while reducing my busyness and stress significantly.
Essential AI Tools
Claude and ChatGPT (Paid Versions)
If you're a PM without paid versions of Claude and ChatGPT, get them both. ChatGPT's GPT-4 is excellent for reasoning and makes a great thought partner before technical discussions. For writing and communication though, I really love using Claude Sonnet 3.5. I use it to automate writing most tickets for new features now. I always read and edit every epic and story it creates, but it saves me tons of time on the initial drafts. Remember - it's more important to spend your time making sure your product decisions are well reasoned than perfecting ticket language.
Replit or Bolt (Paid Versions)
Consider adding a paid subscription to Replit or Bolt to your toolkit. Both are solid options - Replit has more robust capabilities and integrations, while Bolt shines more on the design side. I have more experience with Replit and love how easily it integrates with Anthropic or OpenAI APIs. I’ve been using Replit to prototype new features to test ideas early. It’s been powerful to get that data early and use it to explain to leadership how a specific direction achieves our goals better than another. I expect it will become expected PMs communicate tradeoffs in some way leveraging prototypes in the near future.
In 2025, you'll see more PMs and Product leaders talking about prototyping while they're writing the PRD or product brief. Even if your company doesn't have a prototyping tool yet, don't be the last PM without AI prototyping experience. I suspect it'll show up in PM interviews and job requirements this year.
Time to Practice
Buying things that will make you better can feel good. But Kobe didn't only show up to the gym when his coach or teammates were there - he put in the work consistently on his own. During a time where budgets are tighter, and AI empowers PMs to do more with less, your skills, craft, creativity, and taste will matter now more than ever. Invest in the time to hone your craft.
We can expect 2025 to bring a lot more upheaval in the world of tech and Product. The best thing you can do for yourself right now is invest in your growth.
Stay curious.
P.S.: I coach PMs how to 10x themselves using AI in the highest leverage ways, while feeling more empowered and less stressed. If you’re interested in working together, please reach out.
P.S.S.: Also, the fifth live rendition of Jumpstart Your AI Career on Pearson/O’Reilly will be February 24. Register here.
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