Michael Goitein's Linkedin Analytics

Corporate narcissism kills brands faster than any competitor ever could. Companies become more obsessed with telling their own story than with finding and solving customer problems. 𝗜𝗕𝗠:"𝘉𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘵." 𝗔𝘃𝗶𝘀:"𝘞𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳." 𝗔𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘀:"𝘖𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥." Me, me me. All self-focused. All missing the point. Meanwhile, 𝗚𝗘𝗜𝗖𝗢 promises: "15 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 15% 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦" Notice the difference? The first group talks about themselves. GEICO tells prospective customers exactly what they'll do for them. Everything, all their strategy, systems, processes, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 is organized around 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 against that promise. Brand loyalty is a myth that only exists in the minds of the CEO and the Marketing department. The only thing that matters is building and sustaining customer habits. And habits only form when companies make and consistently deliver against the promises that actually matter to the right customers.

Lovable.dev achieved $10M ARR in 60 days with just 15 people by solving one profound problem: democratizing software creation for non-technical founders. With AI startups cropping up like mushrooms after the rain, only a small part of what makes Lovable revolutionary is their AI tech - It's far more a question of Lovable's strategic choice to create a platform where both technical and non-technical people can collaborate on the same codebase. Lovable has used this to enable the next wave of entrepreneurs. Because the next billion-dollar company might come from someone who can't write a single line of code. And that changes everything.

Substack’s set of brilliant strategy choices enabled @Lenny Rachitsky, an unemployed former AirBnB product lead, to build a multi-channel media empire earning more than multiple Wall Street Journal and New York Times columnists combined. And it’s all due to a guiding platform ethos inspired by Kevin Kelly's "1,000 True Fans," where value flows directly between creators and their audiences without the bloated middlemen and dumpster fire user experience of traditional online publishing. It’s worked similarly well for Gergely Orosz & his great engineering newsletter. Instead of the cancerous ad revenue and algorithms driving the core of so many web media and social outlets, the future belongs here, and to other platforms that are able to optimize for genuine 1:1, and one to many (community) connections. Having superstar solopreneur creators like Justin Welsh and Dan Koe join in the last couple of weeks only confirms Substack is here to stay as a place that cares and wants to continue to create a better experience for both writers & readers.

Strategy tells one story of your product, but it goes beyond Marketing in one important way: Strategy represents the set of choices you make to compel customer behavior in ways that mean success for them, as well as for your business. That’s the difference between a set of strategic choices and a story that creates a sustainable competitive advantage vs. one that’s just “promotion” or “positioning.”

The one mindset shift that separates strategic managers from good ones. If you’re a manager leading one or more software teams, remember: Your team’s success isn't about your authority to dictate solutions It's about your ability to influence And get the most out of your people Here's why:  – The "I'm in charge" mentality limits what you can accomplish  – Cross-functional leadership expands your potential So what's the solution? The "Ladder of Responsibility" (h/t Roger Martin) It’s no longer either:  – “Do exactly what I tell you to do” or   – “Go figure this out on your own” It's about:  – Understanding readiness  – Fine-grained responsibility transfer  – Tailoring your approach to each person & each context Bottom line: It doesn’t have to be all you or all your team. But understanding where you are  and what it takes to get to the next level. Find out where you are and how to move one step up the ladder with your teams this week. Follow me for more on strategy and product.

Justin Welsh tracks freedom metrics over traditional growth metrics: • Hours worked per week • Location independence • Ability to decline opportunities • Revenue per hour worked Or just the ability to have lunch with your spouse whenever you want. Astoundingly, his 89%+ profit margins and $10 million in revenue prove efficiency beats scale. When your business serves your life instead of consuming it, both can thrive. I break down the strategy Welsh used to build his lifestyle-first solopreneur business model: https://lnkd.in/e3bMV63d

Every bold new strategic initiative crashes against the hidden choices controlling your org's deeply engrained habits. Smart leaders don't fight this Newton-like law of organizational gravity. Instead, they decode it so they can see it and understand it first. While you're crafting your perfect new strategy PowerPoint, your company's real strategy runs through the veins of your org, showing up in every tiny daily behavior, decision, budget allocation, and unwritten rules. Don't be a dreamer with grand visions of how you're going to change your org. Instead, be a private detective 🔍. Dig up what deeply-held choices truly drive decision-making before trying to build something new on top of shifting foundations you have no clue exist and haven't bothered to understand first. Until you surface the shadow strategic choices controlling every move using frameworks like the Strategy Choice Cascade, your every attempt at transformation will consistently fail.

99% of companies are failing at strategy. Why? There’s too much going on, and they’re drowning in complexity. Each group is off on its own, following disconnected plans that don’t support the company's Mission or Vision. The result: – Marketing pulls one way – Sales pulls another – Product builds something else Simple beats complex every time. The solution isn't more planning, financial projections, or 100-page decks. It's alignment: – Set one clear company strategy – Connect every team's strategic choices to reinforce & support this strategy – Eliminate competing priorities I've seen this transform companies in weeks. Want to 10x your ability to get stuff that really matters done? Start here.

Justin Welsh started small here on LinkedIn, trying out different things and learning before achieving his current 750K+ follower count. He then moved to X (530K+), and is now achieving newfound success on Substack ($200K+ projected annual revenue) after just two months. Welsh masters one platform, then systematically applies a set of underlying principles to learn and dominate the next. His progressive channel strategy reduces platform risk while multiplying reach. The compound effect of Welsh’s platform mastery creates exponential opportunities. The lesson is clear: Start with one platform. Find your voice and your tribe before expanding to the next. Which platform will you master first before expanding your reach?

I struggled for years to consistently write and ship  high-quality writing on a regular deadline. Studying with some of the best online writing teachers, like Nicolas Cole 🚢👻, Dickie Bush 🚢, Ayodeji Awosika, Tim Denning, and Todd Brison & Justin Welsh and their communities really made a difference, But I was still stuck in the first stage of knowledge: Mystery. Roger Martin's "Knowledge Funnel" gives us a helpful mental model to  see how all knowledge progresses from Mystery, through Heuristic, to Algorithm, and then Code. For years, I was stuck in phase one: Mystery. Every article was a battle with blank pages and scattered ideas. AI has very quickly progressed writing to the algorithm and code stages, but it also writes uninspired, cold, and trite stuff. But by experimenting and gradually learning to prompt better, I've learned to use AI as a tireless, ruthlessly honest editor and strategic thinking partner that helps me move from random inspiration to repeatable systems. But pen on paper still forms a crucial part of my process, as you can see in the mind map below for my latest Notion article. I use my "heuristics" for turning rough ideas into structured outlines, and use AI-powered feedback loops to catch rambling redundancies and poor transitions before I publish. The magic is never in letting Claude write for me - it's in the back & forth collaboration. Using AI this way, I'm able to continuously uplevel my judgment and my writing craft while boosting my consistency. Read more about my full process below

Silicon Valley gospel: "Move fast and break things." Linear's approach: "𝘔𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘧𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴." Linear chooses to be the "French Laundry" of software tools and reject everything venture-backed startups take for granted. How's that working out for them? • 96% employee retention. • Profitable for 2+ years. • $1.25B valuation. Sometimes, slow and steady does win the race. But not if you don't make the right strategic choices. Read the full Linear strategy breakdown here: https://lnkd.in/e5i7Jt9F

When Linear 's site got hit with a DDoS attack, they didn't retreat to an engineering war room They turned to Figma and transformed certain catastrophe into a viral opportunity. In this week's "Product Strategy Decoded," we'll dig in to: 1. Decode how Figma has quietly become the command center for design-led companies 2. Understand Linear's guiding principle that accelerated their time to market by 40% 3. Build ecosystem moats and network effects Adobe was willing to pay $20 billion for Learn strategies of how you, too, can weaponize the whitespace in workflows and take on more-established and better-funded but siloed competitors To join us, subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/eY5jUjNa

As Apple kicks off WWDC25 today, it’s important to remember how its ecosystem strategy grew out of the empathy coded deep in its DNA Every iPhone feature was designed with a fundamental understanding of how people interact with a unique blend of both device hardware and software. Over time, this created organic demand for the complementary products that worked beautifully together & reinforced each other: AirPods, Apple Watch,and  services. This is the "halo effect" at work: When empathy-driven design creates expanding value. Satisfied users don't just buy your product. They invest in your entire world. What ecosystem are you creating?

Vibe coding and AI-powered prototyping lower technical barriers, enabling literally 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 to be a SaaS company. But this makes strategy all the more essential as your fundamental master competency. The only things AI will never replace are embracing the 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘺 and 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘺 at the core of choosing 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙗𝙡𝙚𝙢 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙬𝙝𝙤𝙢, 𝘴𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙙𝙤 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩. Once you’ve identified those pieces, wrapping your strategic choices in a compelling story is how you can reach the right people. I had a blast this week joining Alex M. Pawlowski on his Strategy Stack podcast swapping these and other fundamental strategic truths. https://lnkd.in/ezmfixXS

Since I started writing on Medium 4 years ago, I've consistently wanted to contribute to one publication: Better Marketing After several rejections, I'm pumped to share I've had my first story published today! Sincere thanks to Sinem Günel & the Better Marketing team for the review & feedback. Post link in the comments

Perplexity's real strategic genius wasn't just identifying Google's vulnerability - it was creating a product Google couldn't copy without jeopardizing its core business model. Over time, Google decided to optimize increasingly for advertisers at the expense of users. Perplexity is laser-focused on optimizing for giving users the best possible search experience. It was so good, in fact, that the vastly larger and more powerful Google had to copy Perplexity's AI-powered search results or risk being left behind. Perplexity's customer-centricity and innovation forced Google into an impossible position: Either copy Perplexity and cannibalize ad revenue, or watch users migrate to a superior experience. Sometimes the tiniest chink in the strongest armor can be enough to create exponential innovation. Link to full article with takeaways in the comments below

Lovable.dev achieved $10M ARR in 60 days with just 15 people by solving one profound problem: Make software creation accessible to non-technical founders. With AI startups cropping up like mushrooms after the rain, what makes Lovable revolutionary definitely isn't their AI tech It's Lovable's strategic choice to create a platform where both technical and non-technical people can collaborate on the same codebase. Lovable is using this to enable the next wave of entrepreneurs. Because the next billion-dollar company might come from someone with a great idea who can't write a single line of code. And that changes everything. ------- Every week, I reverse-engineer a different industry leader's strategy using a proven framework. You'll receive a clear, concise analysis of what worked and why–all distilled into a short, 10-minute read with takeaways you can apply to your business. Subscribe to "Product Strategy Decoded" today to uplevel your strategy.

The reason it takes so long to build software isn't what you think... It's called "High WIP" (Work in Progress), and it's destroying your teams' ability to get stuff done. Picture this: • 100 projects started. • 0 finished. • How could it be that everyone's so “busy," yet you can't get anything done? And what happens next? • Morale? Tanking. • Impact? Non-existent. But here's the truth most leaders miss: High WIP isn't the problem – it's a SYMPTOM. The real reasons are hiding below the surface: 1. The inability to make some strategic choices – trying always to do it all. (How’s that been working out for you?) 2. The outdated "vendor" mindset, with "The Business" throwing requirements over the wall to "IT." (It's time to wake up and collaborate instead of dictating. It's 2025, people!) 3. We're managing software development like a factory assembly line (velocity?), when it's actually a learning journey toward achievement 4. Leadership refusing to understand and accept true team capacity, instead of always pushing for more. (Wishing won't make it true) 5. The unending search for the next shiny object: (“THIS is the initiative that'll change everything!" ...until next week's “flavor of the month” comes along.) The hard truth? We're addicted to starting things, but hate finishing them. Want to break free? Start by accepting that less = more. Fewer things done well will be worth far more than trying and failing to do many more things badly. Your team doesn't need more to do. You owe it to them to make some strategic choices. Get clear, and prioritize the fewer, truly essential moves you need to make. Agree? Share your thoughts below 👇 #Leadership #ProductStrategy #SoftwareDevelopment #continuousproductdiscovery

🎯 Most Leaders Miss This Hidden Truth About Strategy vs. KPIs Ever wonder why some companies crush their operations but can't innovate? Here's what years of leading teams to deliver against goals and metrics taught me: KPIs and Strategy are like oil and water - they serve different purposes, yet most leaders try to measure them the same way. Let me break this down: 📊 KPIs = Our "Protect Zone" • They measure what's known and proven • Based on historical data and benchmarks with a "floor" and a "ceiling." • Focus on reliability and efficiency • Help maintain what's already working 🚀 Strategy (OKRs) = Our "Push Zone" • They shape what's new and unknown • Built on future vision and possibilities • Focus on effectiveness and innovation • Help create what doesn't exist yet Here's the game-changing insight: You can't use the same mindset to measure strategic capabilities you use for operational ones. While KPIs look backward at data, strategy requires looking forward at leading signals - those early indicators that our new direction is starting to show promise. The key? KPIs help us watch what we need to protect as we push to build something new (Strategy). 💡 Question for my network: How do you balance maintaining current operational performance while pushing for innovation in your organization? #Leadership #Strategy #Innovation #KPIs #OKRs  #StrategicThinking

Peter Drucker famously said "𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝘁." But now in 2025, I believe Drucker is dead wrong. Here's why: Now that software has eaten the world, and spawned AI, it's 𝘦𝘹𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 that's become commoditized: • A full-scale website? 30 minutes with Lovable, Cursor, Webflow • Payment processing? No-code Stripe or Shopify integration • Course platform? Kajabi or Teachable • Business Management software? Notion The REAL art lies in 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆: • WHO exactly are you serving? • WHAT unique value is there that only you will provide? • HOW are you addressing unmet client needs to transform their lives? These strategic decisions shape everything. You can have the slickest tech stack and flawless execution... But without a client problem that needs to be solved, you're building a bridge to nowhere. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵: In a world where now 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 can execute, the only real advantage is strategic clarity and product sense. Agree or disagree? Share your thoughts below… #Strategy #ProductStrategy #productmanagement