Peter Yang: 10 Rules for Making Products that Customers Love | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)
Peter Yang argues that great product management is a craft, not an instinct or checklist. Product managers must continually develop product sense, deeply understand customers, think strategically before executing, and protect quality through difficult trade-offs. The goal is to build products customers genuinely value, even when that requires delaying milestones or abandoning a beloved project. ## Product Sense Must Be Cultivated - Product sense is the ability to create products or changes that have the intended impact on users. - It is not a permanent, intuitive skill; markets and customer needs constantly change. - PMs should continually improve through: - Empathy - Creativity - Attention to craft - Humility and ongoing learning ## Use Empathy to Diagnose the Problem - Teams often rush into solutions before clearly understanding the customer or business problem. - Peter cites empathy as a product manager’s superpower. - PMs can build empathy by: - Treating customers like members of the team - Speaking directly with them - Personally using the product as customers do, even for just an hour - Accurate problem diagnosis should come before defining a vision or solution. ## Start with Big Ideas Before Daily Execution - Once the problems are understood, teams should pause before getting absorbed in execution. - Collaboratively define: - Mission - Vision - Strategy - Brainstorm ambitious, “blue-sky” ideas and prioritize them. - Seek simple solutions—potentially a few clear steps—that best address customer needs. - New learning may require changing priorities and making trade-offs. ## Protect Quality and Know When to Change Course - Quality may require missing a launch date or short-term OKR. - In one example, Yang chose to add an important feature identified through customer conversations, even though it meant missing a quarterly deadline. - Craft means obsessing over details, trade-offs, bugs, and the extra work required to create a worthwhile experience. - Product managers must also recognize when a project should be canceled. - At Reddit, Yang worked on Reddit Talk, a well-loved live audio product, but the project was ended during an economic downturn because it did not improve the company’s most important metrics. - Good product judgment includes considering the company’s broader needs rather than becoming attached to a particular product. The practical recommendation is to keep customer understanding and product quality at the center of decision-making, while remaining flexible enough to delay, redirect, or stop work when the evidence demands it.