October 2024

Learn how to increase your odds of product success (and career success) by building the skill of making more correct product decisions.

Shreyas Doshi

Advisor to fast-growing startups globally. PM leader at Stripe, Twitter, Google, Yahoo. Built successful products across domains & stages.

Improving Your Product Sense

Google

Stripe

InVideo

Anthropic

Kalshi

Update as of Thu, Apr 23: We recently completed our April class. May class is starting on May 3. It is 70% full. There is no June class. To keep up with student demand, course fee will be raised by $100 around May/June. We expect the fee to be $2500 by year-end. ~Product Sense is the ability to usually make correct product decisions, both macro &amp; micro, even in the face of major ambiguity. If you have worked at a highly successful product company, odds are that one or more of its early people had world-class Product Sense. And even as companies get larger, people with good Product Sense are usually entrusted by senior executives to tackle especially difficult / strategic / ambiguous product priorities. A common misconception regarding Product Sense is that it is something you either have or you don't. In reality, you can significantly improve your Product Sense by understanding and practicing a number of principles of human motivation, behavior, and creativity. Product Sense is a skill. As you improve your Product Sense: * you will be able to make much higher quality product decisions * you will be able to get deeper, more correct insights from customer interviews * you will ask better questions to get to the truth of the matter much faster * you will conceive non-obvious and more compelling solutions to product problems, small &amp; large * you will better influence executives / peers / team members because of your insights and the structure &amp; precision of your communication People who level up on their Product Sense tend to build more successful products, features, and teams. This in turn helps them substantially grow their impact, scope, and lifetime income. WHY THIS COURSE:In this practical, examples-heavy course, you will learn &amp; apply the principles of what it takes to increase your odds of conceiving winning products and features. We will look at dozens of examples of products and product experiences to analyze what makes them compelling (or not compelling). The course material is not just a bunch of dull frameworks and theory. It is delivered live (with recordings available to rewatch later), and every hour of the course makes you think about products in ways that most product people never do in their career. SHOULD I JOIN THIS COURSE:Whether you are a product-focused founder or an ambitious Product Manager or a non-PM (i.e. engineer, eng leader, tech lead, designer, design leader, marketer, data scientist, researcher, product ops, etc.) who's working on products, you will create tremendous optionality for your career (and probably even have more fun doing your job) by being sincere &amp; intentional about improving your Product Sense. But, this is not a foundations course. Folks who are accepted and enroll for this course tend to have a decent amount of industry experience (in eng / PM / design / ops / startups / etc.) There is no specific level cutoff, but you will get a lot out of it if you are at least at the Sr. level (i.e. Sr. PM, Sr. Software Engineer, Sr. Designer, etc.), and likely even more if you are a Sr. Manager / Director / VP / CxO / Founder who's focused on products. (scroll further down to see the titles and companies of people who've already taken this course) WHERE ELSE CAN I LEARN THIS STUFF:People who take this course will learn several ways of making more correct product decisions that are not available anywhere else: not in any books, not on YouTube, not in podcasts, not on social media, not in newsletters, not in any product coaching out there. (The material covered in this course is also not available in Shreyas' own writing &amp; videos — it is too deep, examples-driven, and extensive to cover in his social media posts and videos) WHO HAS TAKEN THIS COURSE:Since its launch in May 2024, over 1200 senior product folks and founders/execs have taken this course (see below for detailed stats). The breakdown is 50-50 startup folks &amp; big company folks. Here's a subset of companies whose employees have already taken the course: Adobe, Airbnb, Amazon, AngelList, Apple, AT&amp;T, Atlassian, Automattic, Banco Santander, Bill.com, Bloomberg News, Blue Origin, Bubble.io, Business Insider, Canva, Capital One, CashApp, Chime, Cisco, Cloudera, Coda, Coinbase, Credit Karma, CrowdStrike, DocuSign, DoorDash, Earthscale AI, Ebay, Expedia Group, Experian, General Motors, GetYourGuide, GitHub, Google, Groundlight AI, Grubhub, Hinge Health, HP, ICICI Lombard, Indiegogo, Instagram, Intercom, Invideo AI, JPMC, Kaiser Permanente, Klaviyo, LaunchDarkly, LinkedIn, Mastercard, Meta, Microsoft, Miro, NFX, Nightfall AI, Nomad Health, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Okta, OpenAI, OpenPhone, OpenStore, Oracle, Palo Alto Networks, PayPal, Paytm, PeakXV, Pinterest, Postman, Preply, Qualcomm, Reddit, Revolut, Rivian, Rokt, Runway, Salesforce, Snowflake, Splunk, Square, Stripe, Supermeme.ai, SumUp, Target, TikTok, Tubi TV, Uber, U.S. Bank, Veeva Systems, Verizon, Visa, Walmart, Wayfair, Wells Fargo, Workday, Yahoo, YouTube, Zendesk WHY LEARN FROM SHREYAS:As an engineer and later as a product leader, Shreyas has led multiple successful products at every stage — 0-1 products, 1-10 products, and 10-100 products — across multiple domains at EDS, Yahoo, Google, Twitter, Stripe. While there is never just one factor behind product success, Shreyas has seen the transformative effect that strong Product Sense has on the:* quality of product decisions* speed &amp; focus of execution* clarity of product vision &amp; direction* alignment at all levels of the org* CEOs' perception of your competence* and most importantly, the magnitude of product outcomes. After 20 years in operating roles, Shreyas is now advising startups in this next chapter of his career. His formal advising work includes Anthropic, Chainlink, Kalshi, inVideo AI and a dozen other startups. Over the years, Shreyas was naturally strong in some aspects of Product Sense (e.g. Cognitive Empathy) but he's also had to develop his skills in some other aspects (e.g. Segmentation, Differentiation). Shreyas has a pretty unique perspective on what it actually takes to systematically build one's Product Sense: from his own experiences, from coaching some of the most talented product people in tech, and from working directly with some of the most legendary founders of our generation. Shreyas has spent the past 2.5 years condensing everything he's learned about how to improve Product Sense into this 8 day course. More than 1200 students took this course in 2024 alone. Outside of this course, Shreyas has taught over 3000 mid-career &amp; advanced career PMs &amp; product leaders since 2022. Outside of teaching, Shreyas continues to advise CEOs / Founders / Executives at multiple startups on the topics covered in this course. Shreyas' favorite company core principle is Amazon's Leaders Are Right, a Lot. Shreyas decided to teach this course because Product Sense is the key skill that actually makes this principle actionable for every product leader. WHO SHOULD NOT TAKE THIS COURSE: This course is not for everyone. You should NOT take this course if * You work as an employee of a company that primarily makes non-software products e.g. hardware, pharmaceuticals, deep climate tech, defense tech, etc. (Founders of such companies are welcome to join and might find it extremely helpful)* You are looking for training on how to break into Product Management. This is an advanced course, not a foundations course, and it is meant for people who have meaningful experience with building / designing / marketing products* You are hoping that just taking a course will make you as good as Steve Jobs, Stewart Butterfield, Patrick Collison, Jack Dorsey, etc. at product (you could get there eventually, and this course can be a major catalyst, but you'll need to put in a lot of work for years / decades to get there and not everyone can get there)* You tend to avoid thinking for yourself and you strongly prefer looking to others for direction* You are not building products as your primary job (e.g. you are a workshop facilitator, course creator, content creator, coach or mentor, consultant, part-time/full-time instructor, book author, etc.) or consulting/content creation/teaching is a significant activity for you* You believe that there is no such thing as Product Sense and that the key to product success is just iteration + good luck* You are quite certain that you are already world-class at Product Sense and you feel you cannot learn more advanced Product Sense ideas from someone else* In practice, you tend to prioritize preservation of your existing beliefs higher than the results &amp; outcomes you want. People who get the most out of this course tend to have sharp intelligence and an outcome-focus, along with high openness. A recent student put it quite eloquently: “[this course] demands leaving your ego at the door and being open to learning in its truest sense.” If you are still interested, and if you kinda like the fact that this course is not for everyone, read on.

Make highly successful products, consistently, without relying on luck

Product-focused startup founders &amp; CEOs who want to improve their ability to make more correct product decisions. Pre-PMF &amp; just post-PMF.

Talented Product Managers, Designers, Engineers, Data Scientists, Ops/Mktg folks who want to take their Product Sense to the next level.

Senior product leaders across PM, Design, Analytics, Eng, Ops, Mktg, etc. Many product team leaders (P-D-E) also take this course together.

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

Understand the mindset needed to be good at Product Sense

Learn the right ways to figure out Positioning, Customer Segmentation, Differentiation, and your overall Product Strategy

Learn how to apply 20 specific Product Creativity Techniques to build better products & experiences that resonate with users & customers

Learn the habits & tactics you can implement to improve your Product Sense

Dissect the non-obvious factors that lead to product success

Learn how to understand users & customers so well that it almost seems like you can read their minds

Learn how to figure out what to build and what not to build (and why)

Learn how to conceive (and help your team conceive) non-obvious but correct solutions to tricky product problems

Learn how to evaluate products & user experiences, build better Taste and convey your Taste in ways that your team understands & appreciates

Learn how to "think more strategically" when making major product decisions

Learn how to properly assess Product Sense when interviewing & hiring

Provide a brief description for each module as a way to sell the value of what students will be learning throughout the course.

First Module

Second Module

Third Module

Course syllabus

A view of everything we will cover in this course. This course material isn't available anywhere else.

Who has taken this course

From the Founder of Runway, Siqi Chen (student of the Oct 2024 course)

What are their titles

Is this course solely for US-based folks? No.

Top 100 companies enrolled in this course. Can you find your company here?

Live Zoom comments & reactions from students

What people are saying

Meet your instructor

12 pm - 5 pm US Eastern Time4 pm - 9 pm GMT6 pm - 11 pm CET10:30 pm - 3:30 am India Time All sessions will be recorded — recordings will be available in your Maven account within 24-48 hrs. This session will be immediately followed by an optional AMA.

Class #1 - Saturday

12 pm - 4 pm US Eastern Time10:30 pm - 3:30 am India Time This session will immediately be followed by an optional AMA. All sessions are live &amp; interactive, on Zoom—group breakout exercises &amp; class discussions are a major part of the course. Recordings available in 24-48 hrs.

Class #2 - Sunday

8 pm - 10 pm US Eastern Time6:30 am - 8:30 am India Time (on Tuesday) Optional live AMA with Shreyas. All sessions, including AMAs, are recorded. Recordings are usually available in your Maven account within 24-48 hours.

Optional AMA - Monday

8 pm - 10 pm US ET Class #3 has an alternative time for Europe &amp; India-based students, as follows: Wednesday, 10am-12pm US PT5 - 7 pm GMT7 - 9 pm CET11:30 pm - 1:30 am India Time In other words, there are 2 live instances of this class (you need to attend only 1 of them).

Class #3 - Tuesday

8 pm - 10 pm US ET6:30 am - 8:30 am India Time (on Thursday) Optional live AMA with Shreyas (all sessions including AMAs will be recorded if you cannot attend)

Optional AMA - Wednesday

8 pm - 10 pm ET Class #4 has an alternative time for Europe &amp; India-based students, as follows: Friday, 10 - 12 pm US PT5 - 7 pm GMT7 - 9 pm CET11:30 pm - 1:30 am India Time In other words, there are 2 live instances of this class (you need to attend only 1 of them).

Class #4 - Thursday

12 pm - 5 pm US Eastern Time4 pm - 9 pm GMT6 pm - 11 pm CET10:30 pm - 3:30 am India Time This session will be followed by a at least 1 hour of optional AMA. All recordings will be available in your Maven account within 24-48 hours.

Class #5 - Saturday

We'll spend over 19 hours on the core course material in-class &amp; 7+ hours on Q&amp;As. Schedule &amp; timings have been chosen intentionally based on what works best for most product people in practice Recordings for all sessions will be available in your Maven account within 48 hrs.

Optimized for very busy schedules of PMs / Founders / Managers.

While some students think they prefer 4-6 week course, these long courses have worse learning outcomes. This course has been structured to take up 7-8 days so students can still work their normal job during the week. Every detail of this course is crafted quite intentionally.

Intentionally crafted as an intense 1 week course, not 4-6 weeks long

This course is highly interactive with multiple exercises, examples, breakout activities. This isn't a plain-old just watch videos format. The Saturday to Saturday schedule maximizes weekend learning for students with busy jobs. Weekday schedule is designed for high flexibility.

Your time is precious—this course is meticulously designed to maximize learning

Course schedule

This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects. There are no dull stretches of just listening for hours and trying to pay attention.

Active hands-on learning

Every class is very interactive. You’ll review examples and analyze them in smaller breakout rooms.

Interactive and examples-based

Join a community of like-minded, positive sum people who want to learn and grow alongside you. Unlike some workplaces, there is no cutthroat competition between people here. They share a lot, help a lot, and are more open &amp; vulnerable. Everything happens in a shared Slack.

Learn with a cohort of peers

Students learn much better and have more fun in live courses. Shreyas teaches every class live and is active in the course Slack channels.

A student writes what is different about this course and how Shreyas teaches the course

Frequently Asked Questions

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More live Zoom reactions from students during class

Student reviews

Short article from a student after taking the course

Students in one of the September classes marked where they are joining from

Many non-PMs have taken the course. Here are their titles.

How students feel about the course

This is the Course Syllabus

A student writes about what is different about this course

All the information you need to decide if you should take this course is on this page. We hope it is useful. If you need more information on whether this course is worth the time &amp; the cost, <a href="https://testimonial.to/shreyas-improving-your-product-sense-course/all" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">check out the experiences previous students have posted on LinkedIn and Twitter</a>.

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