Jakub Rajek

After 10 years of building Productboard, we're shipping something that feels like magic: an AI agent built specifically for product management. Here's the thing—product teams are drowning in context. Customer feedback lives in 12 different tools. That brilliant insight from last quarter? Gone when someone leaves. And you're still making calls based on vibes instead of the full picture. Generic AI tools? They're helpful until the conversation ends and they forget everything. Spark is different. It lives in Productboard. It remembers. It knows your customers, your product, your strategy, and it gets smarter as your team does. What you can do right now: → Generate PRDs that pull from your actual customer data → Turn messy feedback into clear, lasting insights → Keep competitive battle cards fresh without the manual grind This is organizational memory that actually sticks. Context that doesn't disappear. Clarity without the chaos. #ProductManagement is about to get a whole lot more fun. Ready to try Spark? Join the beta: https://lnkd.in/grDPp_xQ #ProductManagement #AI #ProductDevelopment

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AI has a product problem. Not a model problem. Models are making capability leaps every few weeks but AI-native product innovation hasn’t kept up. Most products are forcing AI into existing UX patterns rather than rethinking an AI-native experience from first principles. Parallels to early mobile (2007-2010) - for years, mobile meant shrinking your website into your phone until Uber reimagined transportation. To be clear, there are lots of amazing AI-first products. See NotebookLM, Lovable, Stitch, Flow. But the pace of innovation on models has been faster, for a lot of reasons which I will explore in future posts.

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Product marketing should be brought in at the beginning of the process, not the end! And if you don't have a PMM, you should do the thinking they would from the start. Too many teams do this: → An idea is prioritized → They explore the problem space → Engineers develop it, teams test it, and… → Right before release, they bring in marketing But how can you expect a successful go-to-market when the people responsible for messaging and customer adoption had no involvement until the end? This “release-first” thinking results in: 1. Disconnected messaging that doesn’t resonate with the target audience 2. Sales teams scrambling to understand the product feature 3. Poor adoption rates Here’s what needs to happen instead: • PMMs should be involved from the beginning • They should be collaborators not just spectators • They should enter in the research phase and stay involved When PMMs are involved early with the PMs - or the team is acting like a PMM - here’s what you’ll nail: 1. Research → Understand market dynamics, buyer needs, and competition before building the product 2. Strategy → Develop clear positioning, segmentation, and pricing that aligns with both users and the business 3. Enablement → Equip internal teams (sales, support, marketing) with the knowledge and tools to crush GTM 4. Customer and Market Launch → Ensure a smooth rollout with consistent messaging across internal and external audiences 5. Post-Launch → Track adoption, gather feedback, and iterate based on real-world performance So stop just releasing things, and start launching them. If you want to learn more about how to do this well, check out my deep dive with Jason Oakley: https://lnkd.in/eB7s6umA Build intentionally → Launch strategically → Win consistently

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📊 Product Growth Metrics Cheat Sheet—Your Quick Reference! Struggling to track the right numbers? This one-pager breaks down must-watch metrics across Acquisition, Activation, Engagement, Referral, Retention, and Revenue—all in plain English. Save it, share it, and keep it handy the next time you build a dashboard or prep for a growth review. 🔖✨ Which metric do you rely on most? Let us know below! 👇 #ProductGrowth #SaaS #GrowthMetrics #ProductManagement #StartupTips #NextLeap

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Are Product Ops people doomed from the start? I had a conversation with a former client last week that's been stuck in my head. "By definition, our job is to surface inefficiencies. How do we escape being disliked when we're there to show the organisation everything they're bad at?" He had a point. Product Ops roles typically get staffed because something isn't working. Often, we're hired to diagnose problems, challenge established ways of working, and ask uncomfortable questions about efficiency and effectiveness. We poke and prod. We inquire. We hold up a mirror. And then we wonder why we sometimes face resistance, why transformation feels like an uphill battle, why some stakeholders seem to actively work against the changes we're trying to implement. But if there are only two things I've learned in my years as a Product Ops specialist, it's these: 1️⃣ Resistance isn't personal 2️⃣ Resistance is inevitable When your role is fundamentally about revealing gaps and weaknesses, you're bound to make people uncomfortable. When you're asking teams to change habits that have worked "well enough" for years, pushback is natural. But there is a deep difference between organisations who look in the mirror and get indignant about what they see, and organisations who look to understand. The companies that succeed with Product Ops aren't the ones without problems - companies without problems don't exist. They're the ones who are mature enough to want the mirror held up. The ones that hired you not despite the discomfort you'll cause, but because of it. Remember: Any change - whether personal, professional, or organisational - is painful at first. Because in order to want to change you need to first realise that you have to change. Our job as Product Ops experts is to guide our teams through that change. And discomfort - even our own - plays a crucial part in doing that successfully.

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