Learnings from Yahoo Memo: The 'Peanut Butter Manifesto'

Hello Leaders!

Welcome to another edition of our newsletter, where I share insights and tips on how to build great products. Today, we have a special treat for you: we are going to analyze a famous internal memo from Yahoo that was leaked to the public in 2006. It is known as the “Peanut Butter Manifesto ”, and it was written by Brad Garlinghouse , a senior vice president at Yahoo at the time.

The memo was a candid and courageous critique of Yahoo’s strategy, organization, culture, and performance. It also proposes a radical plan to change the course of the company and regain its competitive edge. The memo is a fascinating and relevant case study for any product leader or product manager back then, now and future who wants to learn from the successes and failures of one of the pioneers of the Internet.

Here are the top 10 key learnings from the memo that we think you should know:

1. Have a clear vision for your product and company ??: Know what you are and what you are not and focus your resources and efforts on the most important and impactful opportunities. You need to avoid spreading yourself too thin across too many things, which leads to mediocrity and irrelevance.
2. Have clear accountability and ownership for your product and its success ??: Have clear roles and responsibilities for yourself and your team and hold yourself and others accountable for the results. You need to avoid overlapping or competing business units that create confusion and inefficiency.
3. Be decisive and fast in making and executing decisions ?: Make informed decisions based on data, insights, and feedback, and execute them with agility and quality. You need to avoid analysis paralysis and bureaucracy that slow you down and hinder your innovation.
4. Be passionate and motivated about your product and its potential ??: Have a passion for your product and a motivation to win. You need to inspire and recognize your team and peers who share the same passion and motivation. You need to avoid complacency and mediocrity that erode your competitive edge.
5. Be open to change and transformation when needed ??: Embrace change and transformation as opportunities to grow and improve your product. You need to initiate change and transformation when needed, with courage, conviction, insight, and commitment1. You need to avoid resistance and inertia that prevent you from adapting to the changing market and customer needs.
6. Communicate effectively with your internal stakeholders ??: Communicate your vision, strategy, goals, plans, progress, challenges, etc. with your internal stakeholders, such as engineers, designers, marketers, strategists, executives, etc. You need to listen to their feedback and opinions and engage them in constructive discussions. You need to avoid silos and conflicts that hamper your collaboration and alignment.
7. Communicate effectively with your external stakeholders ??: You need to communicate your value proposition, benefits, features, updates, etc. with your external stakeholders, such as users, partners, advertisers, media, etc. You need to understand their needs, expectations, preferences, and behaviors. You need to avoid disconnects and gaps that damage your reputation and trust.
8. Design an optimal organization structure for your product ??: Design an organization structure that supports your vision, strategy, goals, processes, roles, responsibilities, incentives, etc. You need to implement the organization design with minimal disruption and maximum efficiency. You need to avoid unnecessary complexity and redundancy that increase your costs and reduce your productivity.
9. Solicit feedback from various sources and learn from it ??: Solicit feedback from various sources, such as data, analytics, experiments, surveys, reviews, etc. You need to learn from the feedback, both positive and negative, and use it to improve your product. You need to avoid ignoring or dismissing feedback that challenges your assumptions or opinions.
10. Be courageous and honest in addressing the problems and challenges you face ??: You need to express your courage and honesty in addressing the problems and challenges you face with your product and company. You need to acknowledge your mistakes or failures, apologize when needed, and take corrective actions. You need to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

I hope you enjoyed this analysis of the Peanut Butter Manifesto, and that you learned something valuable from it. I encourage you to read the full memo if you haven’t already, and to share your thoughts and comments with us. You can find the memo here: https://brunowatt.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/peanut-butter-manifesto-wsj.pdf

Until next time, keep building great products! ??

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