There is a wealth of information available for product managers. Since so many folks the CometChat team works are product managers, we thought it'd be helpful to compile a list of our favorite product resources to help you focus on the really helpful ones.
Listed below are 50 websites you should pay attention to, organized into groups based on who is writing and contributing to them. Most of the sites are regularly updated so you’ll be sure to get the most up-to-date insights. The last group of sites have gone on a hiatus, but have great content that stands the test of time.
Individuals
Here are some individuals who post regularly on product management related topics from their own personal experience. In some cases they may write for some of the other sites listed here as well.
1. Hiten Shah
Hiten Shah started three SaaS companies, Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics and Quick Sprout. One is venture capital backed & the others are self-funded. Read his site for insights on startups and Saas businesses.
Suggested read: Create products that people love by validating your idea first
2. Janna Bastow
Janna Bastow is CEO of ProdPad and co-founder of Mind the Product (both listed here) and is inventor of the Now/Next/Later roadmap. In addition to contributing to the resources for those organizations Janna also a weekly newsletter on LinkedIn called Simply Product. Subscribe to that newsletter to get a non nonsense view of product management.
Suggested read: Reframing Backlogs and Roadmaps for Good
3. John Cutler
John has an extensive history as a product manager, coach and product evangelist. He shares his experiences working with product teams in several different formats including on Medium, his own website, and more recently via weekly posts on The Beautiful Mess. Read John’s work if you’d like a different perspective on common product management challenges.
Suggested read: Neither, either, while, without
4. Nir and Far
Nir Eyal is an author (wrote "Hooked" and "Indistractable"), lecturer and angel investor who worked for a while in the gaming and advertising agency. His blog Nir and Far is “about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business.” Read Nir’s work if you’re interested in user experience, behavioral economics, or neuroscience and how it relates to product.
Suggested read: Be a Schedule Builder, Not a To-Do List Maker
5. Sachin Rahki
Sachin Rahki was a product manager for several years and is now founder and CEO of NoteJoy. His blog focuses on the lessons he’s learned and their relevance to product management and entrepreneurship. His posts are particularly helpful for people doing product management in startups.
Suggested read: The Top 10 Deliverables of Product Managers
6. The Product Guy
Jeremy Horn, The Product Guy, has been a product manager for over two decades and has founded and advised several starups. Follow The Product Guy blog for short videos where product management practitioners share their expert advice.
Suggested read: Encouraging Diversity @ Work
Organizations
There are several organizations out there that regularly share thoughts and experiences about product management even though their actual product or service is something a bit different. These resources can be very enlightening because they are often written from a perspective of experience - either here’s how we do it, or here’s how we’ve seen it done.
7. Andreessen Horowitz
Andreessen Horowitz (aka "a16z") is a venture capital firm that backs technology entrepreneurs. Read their blog to get a perspective on what entrepreneurs, investors, executives, engineers, academics, industry experts and others in the technology ecosystem are up to.
Suggested read: Good Product Manager/Bad Product Manager
8. First Round Review
The venture capital firm First Round Capital launched the First Round Review to provide long form looks at how people build technology. Read First Round Review to get insights and tactics around building high tech companies.
Suggested read: Build Products That Solve Real Problems With This Lightweight JTBD Framework
9. Inside Intercom
Intercom builds products that help businesses build better customer relationships. Their Inside Intercom blog and podcast provide insight into how they approach all aspects of their business, including their latest thinking on building and designing great products.
Suggested read: Intercom on Product: The intersection of company and product strategy
10. OpenView Partners
OpenView Venture Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in business software companies. Their blog focuses on several topics relevant to business software companies, including product led growth.
Suggested read: What is Product Led Growth? How to Build a Software Company in the End User Era
11. Signal v. Noise
The folks who run Basecamp have shared their experiences running a software product company (and on running a company in general) on Signal v. Noise. Read SvN for “strong opinions and shared thoughts on design, business, and tech.”
Suggested read: Options, Not Roadmaps
Product Management Communities
Feeling overwhelmed with the thought of visiting 50 different sites to get your fill of product management knowledge? You may want to start by visiting these communities that all do an excellent job of curating content from many of the people and companies listed elsewhere in this post. These communities also offer ways to interact with other product people via Slack groups, events, and meetups.
12. Mind the Product
Mind the Product is a community of product people – run by product people, for product people - that runs annual Mind the Product Conferences and Product Tank meetups. They also offer a membership and product training and workshops. Read their blog for select videos from their conferences as well as insights from product practitioners across the globe.
Suggested read: Lessons and Learnings from Launching a New Product with a Remote Team
13. Product Coalition
Product Coalition is an independent Product Management community that publishes work from over 400 writers. Read Product Coalition to get varying thoughts on product management from a wide range of perspectives.
Suggested read: How to Organize a Review of the Year Session for Your Team
14. Product Collective
Product Collective produces the top newsletter for software product managers, live online product interviews, INDUSTRY the product conference, and hosts an active Slack community. Read the Product Collective blog to get regular pointers to pertinent product management resources and analysis of current product management news.
Suggested read: How to handle SaaS product outages like a boss
15. Product Craft
ProductCraft is an online community for product people launched by Pendo. Read ProductCraft if you’re looking for regular insights from active product people on a wide variety of product management related topics.
Suggested read: Beyond Now, Next, Later: A New Way to Structure Your Roadmap
16. Product Manager HQ
Product Manager HQ is the trusted career destination for learning how to break into product management and excelling on the job that includes a blog, Slack community and training courses. Read PMHQ to get tips on finding your next product management job and excelling once you get there.
Suggested read: Configuration vs Customization
Trainers/Consultants
A rich source of product management information are the myriad companies that provide product management training and consulting. Keep in mind that these sources can sometimes describe things as they should be, not how they really are. As long as you keep that caveat in mind, these sites can be extremely helpful resources.
17. 280 Group
280 Group is a product management training and consulting firm that provides consulting, contractors, training, certifications, recruiting, templates, coaching, books and a Product Management optimization program. Read the 280Group blog for a perspective on product management in larger, more established organizations.
Suggested read: Product Roadmap Prioritization - You Asked, We Answered
18. Brainmates
Brainmates, a training and consulting firm based in Australia, offers product management training, consulting and contracting as well as hosts events. Read the Brainmates blog to get product management insights intended for medium to large businesses.
Suggested read: Zoom in and out to TRULY understand your customers
19. Career.pm
Greg Pickril and Daniel Zacarias are using their substantial experience in product management to provide product management career coaching, training and resources. Read the Career.pm blog to get information that will help you accelerate your product management career
Suggested read: The Messy Truth About Product Management
20. Department of Product
The Department of Product is a global educational institution dedicated to helping product managers, product teams and technology professionals progress in their careers by acquiring new skills. Read the Department of Product to get in-depth coverage of topics of relevance to product managers, even if at first glance they don’t seem to be.
Suggested read: APIs Explained for Product Managers
21. Gibson Biddle
Gibson Biddle is the former VP/CPO at Netflix/Chegg who is now a speaker, teacher, & workshop host. Read Gib’s work on Medium or his own site to learn about product strategy and how to make “wicked hard” decisions.
Suggested read: How to Define Your Product Strategy
22. KBPMedia
Kent McDonald is a practicing product person who puts together a collection of resources primarily focused on product people who work inside organizations. If you work on back office software, implement COTS products, build business intelligence solutions, or build internal tools you’ll find helpful resources on KBPMedia.
Suggested read: A product person’s guide to remote product teams.
23. Pragmatic Institute
Pragmatic Institute (formerly known as Pragmatic Marketing) provides professional education in the areas of design, data and product management. Read Pragmatic Institute resources to get a perspective on product management with a heavy marketing influence.
Suggested read: From The “Black Box” To The Sandbox: Advancing Product Management And Design Collaboration
24. Product School
Product School provides product management focused training and certification. Read the Product School blog to get a perspective on product management from product managers at several different Silicon Valley technology companies.
Suggested read: 2020 Roundup: Best Product Talks from Amazon
25. Product Stride
Product Stride is a product consultancy led by Sean Sullivan with a focus on helping enterprise software companies. Read the ProductFix Blog if you’re at a large software company and want to become better at meeting the needs of your customers while supporting strong business.
Suggested read: Shape Up Development Methodology Break-down
26. Product Talk
Product Talk is written by Teresa Torres, a product discovery coach who helps teams learn how to practice continuous discovery. Read Product Talk to learn how to gain valuable insights from your customer interviews, run effective product experiments, and drive product outcomes that create value for your customers and your business.
Suggested read: Empower Product Teams with Product Outcomes, Not Business Outcomes
27. Produx Labs
Produx Labs, founded by Melissa Perri, provides product training to product teams, product managers, and product leaders. Read the Produx Labs blog or Melissa’s personal blog if you’re looking to deliver outcomes and avoid the build trap.
Suggested read: How ATB Escaped the Build Trap
28. Rich Mironov
Rich Mironov is a veteran product person who coaches product executives, product management teams and revenue software organizations. Read his Product Bytes blog if you want to see how things really work in the business of software and product leadership.
Suggested read: I’ve abandoned “MVP”
29. Roman Pichler
Roman Pichler teaches product managers and product owners, advises product leaders, and helps companies build successful product management organisations. Read Roman’s blog to get insight into how agile and product management can mix successfully.
Suggested read: Are Feature Teams Or Component Teams Right For Your Product?
30. Silicon Valley Product Group
Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) is a consulting firm founded by a group of experienced product managers, including Marty Cagan. Read the SVPG Insights Blog to get product management insights from people who have been there, done it.
Suggested read: Product Management - Start Here
31. Tyner Blain
Scott Sehlhorst is a product management and strategy consultant who founded Tyner Blain to focus on enterprise transformations. Read the Tyner Blain blog if you would like help realizing value from your agile transformation.
Suggested read: Epic Problem Statement
32. Under 10 Consulting
Steve Johnson writes about product strategy, planning, and marketing at Under 10 consulting. Read the Under 10 Consulting blog if you would like to remove the chaos from your product planning efforts.
Suggested read: Product Job Descriptions
Product management tool vendors
Companies that produce tools for product managers certainly have a vested interest in producing content focused on product managers. The good news is all of the companies listed below go beyond just how to use their tool and provide meaningful advice on how to do good product management.
33. Aha!
Aha! Builds SaaS roadmap and idea management software that help people set goals and initiatives and connect them to the execution. Read the Aha! Blog if you want to read advice on product management and suggestions for running an entirely remote software product business.
Suggested read: The Benefits of Remote Work
34. Amplitude
Amplitude produces a product Intelligence platform that provides companies the data they need to build better products. Read the Amplitude blog to get insights into using analytics for product management as well as general good product practices, perspectives and inspiration.
Suggested read: 4 Customer Analytics Questions to Understand Your User Journey
35. Atlassian
Atlassian makes a full suite of tools for software development teams. Read their WorkLife blog to get perspectives on a wide variety of topics relevant for software product teams.
Suggested read: How to run a remote retrospective and have fun doing it
36. InVision
InVision builds a platform for inclusive collaboration within digital product design and development. Read the Inside Design blog if you’re looking for insights into the design aspect of product development.
Suggested read: 5 product management communication hacks to streamline your crazy job
37. ProductBoard
ProductBoard builds products to help product managers understand what customers need, prioritize what to build next, and rally everyone around the roadmap. Read the ProductBoard blog to get insights into product management and an inside view into what it’s like to work at a software product company. ProductBoard also has a product management glossary and a roadmap guide to help product managers.
Suggested read: Product Features
38. ProdPad
ProdPad builds products to help you create and manage objective-based roadmaps and manage ideas, experiments and user feedback. Read the ProdPad blog if you want to get in-depth guidance on how to perform outcome-focused product management.
Suggested read: Prioritize Problems, Not Ideas
39. ProductPlan
ProductPlan builds software to make roadmapping easy, collaborative and transparent. Read the Product Plan blog if you’d like perspectives on a wide range of product management related topics.
Suggested read: When Is it Safe to Remove Functionality from Your Product? (Is it Ever?)
40. Roadmunk
Roadmunk provides products that allow product managers to build, share and align on the roadmap. Visit Roadmunk’s Product to Product blog to get advice on how to make strategic roadmapping quick, effective and collaborative across an entire organization.
Suggested read: A conversation with Monica Dabaghi from Sony Interactive Entertainment
41. UserTesting
UserTesting helps product development teams get direct customer feedback so they can make customer-first decisions about their products. Read the UserTesting blog to get in-depth information about acquiring and using user and customer feedback about your product.
Suggested read: Qualitative vs. quantitative research: what's the difference?
On Hiatus
These resources aren’t getting updated as frequently as you might like, but they contain a great deal of relevant, practical advice that doesn’t age.
42. 100 PM
Suzanne Abate began 100 Product Managers with a mission to interview 100 active product managers in Los Angeles - from startups to enterprise. Visit 100 PM to get fresh ideas about business, technology and design for product managers from product managers.
Suggested read: Top 5 Ways to Deal with Difficult People
43. Andrew Chen
Andrew Chen is an investor at Andreessen Horowitz, where he focuses on consumer products, marketplaces and bottoms-up SaaS. Read Andrew’s blog to learn from his experience leading growth teams at Uber.
Suggested read: Why “Uber for X” startups failed: The supply side is king
44. April Dunford
April Dunford is a mentor, advisor and board member to dozens of startups. Read April’s blog to get powerful insights into positioning technology products.
Suggested read: An Introduction to Positioning
45. Black Box of Product Management
Brandon Chu is the General Manager of Platform at Spotify. Read Brandon’s blog to get a perspective on product management influenced by his experiences at Spotify.
Suggested read: Ruthless Prioritization
46. Bringing the Donuts
Ken is director of product at Figma and previously spent more than 14 years at Google where he led product initiatives for Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Mobile Maps and Google Ventures. Read Bringing the Donuts to get his classic views on the craft of product management.
Suggested read: How to Hire a Product Manager
47. Elezea
In Elezea, Rian van der Merwe writes about becoming a better product manager and designer. Read Elezea to get links and longer articles on product management, the software development process, and working better together.
Suggested read: Use asynchronous standups to improve team communication
48. Folding Burritos
Daniel Zacarias is a Product Management consultant based in Lisbon. Read Folding Burritos for practical articles and resources that can help you with your daily product work.
Suggested read: Optimizing internal product communications
49. Jackie Bavaro
Jackie Bavaro is co-author of Cracking the PM Interview and an Advisor at Asana. Read Jackie’s blog for insights into getting and succeeding in a product management job.
Suggested read: Interview Tips for Senior PM’s
50. The CleverPM
The Clever PM worked as a product manager for over 10 years in a variety of markets and working on a variety of products. Read The CleverPM blog for practical, pragmatic solutions to solving customer problems and wrangling stakeholders as though they were wild cats.
Suggested read: Five Differences Between a Junior PM and a Senior PMON
BONUS
51. The CometChat Blog
We couldn't compile a list of the best blogs for product managers without including our own! CometChat offers in-app messaging solutions for diverse industries ranging from virtual events and telehealth to social communities, dating apps, online marketplaces and more. So communication, community and technology are at the core of everything we do. Since many of our customers are product managers, we'll be using this space to share helpful resources for folks in the space. If you found this article helpful, please bookmark the CometChat blog.
About the Author
Kent J McDonald writes about and practices software product management. He has IT and product development experience in a variety of industries including financial services, health insurance, nonprofit, and automotive.
Kent currently practices his craft with teams in a variety of industries and provides just in time resources for product people at KBP.media and Product Collective. When not writing or product managing, Kent is his family’s #ubersherpa, listens to jazz and podcasts (but not necessarily podcasts about jazz), and collects national parks.
Kent J McDonald
CometChat
