Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

A fantastic guide for anyone interested in product management. It’s filled with practical advice on building products people love.

The second edition of Inspired is even better than the first (which used to be my favorite product management book). It is the best articulation of how to be successful in product management and how to create successful products that I have ever read. It is impossible not to run into into insights about challenges you are having or have had as a product manager when reading it. (This can be a little creepy, how does he know about all these mistakes I have made, is he a psychic?) Do you want to get a job as a product manager? Read and re-read Marty’s book and steal at least a few of his insights for the interview - you’ll sound like a genius. Some of the topics that resonated for me (I’m sure there will be different ones for you): -Product management is distinct from other essential roles: design, engineering, product marketing, and project management (Chapter 1). -Two inconvenient truths that often cause failed product efforts are: at least half our ideas are just not going to work (customers ultimately won’t use it - which is why you need customer validation early in the process) and it takes several iterations to implement an idea so that it delivers the necessary business value (Chapter 6). -The three overarching product development principles from Lean and Agile which help you create successful products are (Chapter 7) -Risks should be tackled up front, rather than at the end. -Products should be defined and designed collaboratively, rather than sequentially. -Its is all about solving problems, not implementing features. -You need a team of missionaries, not mercenaries to create the smallest possible product that meets the needs of a specific market of customers (Chapter 8,9). -A product manager must bring four critical contributions to their team (Chapter 10): Deep knowledge 1) of your customer 2) of the data 3) of your business and its stakeholders 4) of your market and industry -Product managers (PMs) need product designers - not just to help make your product beautiful - but to discover the right product (Chapter 11). -Typical product roadmaps are the root cause of most waste and failed efforts in product organizations (Chapter 22). It is all too easy to institute processes that govern how you produce products that can bring innovation to a grinding halt. You need to try to wean your organization off of typical product roadmaps by focusing on business outcomes, providing stakeholders visibility so that they know you are working on important items, and by eventually making high-integrity commitments when critical delivery dates are needed (Chapter 60). Part of this is managing stakeholders which includes engaging them early in the product discovery process ideally with high-fidelity prototypes (Chapter 61). -Products should start with a product vision in which the product team falls in love with the problem, not the solution (Chapter 25). - Strong product teams work to meet the dual and simultaneous objectives of rapid learning and discovery while building stable and solid releases in delivery. Product discovery is used to address critical risks: (Chapter 33) -Will the customer buy this, or choose to use it? (value risk) -Can the user figure out how to use it? (usability risk) -Can we build it? (feasibility risk) -Does the solution work for our business? (business viability risk) - PMs can’t rely on customers (or executives or stakeholders) to tell us what to build: customer doesn’t know what’s possible, and with technology products, none of us know what we really want until we actually see it (Chapter 33). - While Amazon has a culture of “write the press release first”, Marty suggests PM should write a “happy customer letter first." Imagine a letter sent to the CEO from a very happy and impressed customer which explains why he or she is so happy and grateful for the new product or redesign. The customer describes how it was changed or improved his or her life. The letter also includes an imagined congratulatory response from the CEO to the product team explaining how this has helped the business (Chapter 36). - Product managers need to consider the role of analytics and qualitative and quantitative value testing techniques (Chapter 54). - What it really means for a PM to be the CEO of Product is testing business viability: listening to Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, Finance, Legal, BD, Security, etc. before building the product (Chapter 56). -Establishing a strong product culture requires (Chapters 66-67) -Innovation culture: compelling product visions, strong product managers, empowered business and customer savvy teams product teams often in discovery -Execution culture: urgency, high-integrity commitments, accountability, collaboration, results orientation, recognition, strong delivery management, frequent release cycles (and it is hard to do both)

This book is a great, practical overview of the role of a Product Manager in technology. It clearly explains what makes a good PM and how to actually be effective in the role. What stood out most is how actionable it is. Rather than being theoretical, it focuses on real-world challenges—understanding users, balancing business needs, and working within technical constraints. It reframes product management as solving real customer problems, not just building features. Highly recommended for anyone in product, or anyone considering a PM role.

I’m just starting in my product career (1 YOE) and I immediately noticed so many things I was not doing correctly. Not only that but I also found many things that my company was doing were incorrect too. It’s an eye opener!

Product Management and development is critical to organizations in the digital world. Understanding the approaches, steps and techniques related to product development is critical. This book provides a detailed, direct and no-nonsense approach that people who are new to product management need. This is the book is the best one I have found for people wanting to know what it really takes -- the steps in building a new technology product. This is particularly helpful as it is easy to think of product management and development to be more art and inspiration than science and hard work. This is because much of the hard work is hidden from engineers, marketers and others. There is a lot of hard work, can't be skipped steps and complexity associated with product development and this book brings all of this out. This book is more of a guide and methodology book that tells you like it is rather than telling you a story. This can make a first reading a little taxing, but the real value is in coming back to this text to plan a product development project, check your progress and know what comes next.

I read this in 2022 and reread it in 2025 to go over the significant amount of practical advice. Like every good book on agile, software development, and marketing, this book makes the same points: you think you know everything, but you don’t. Identify your assumptions and prove or disprove them from the market. Learn from that data and proceed accordingly. This is why having a product roadmap is a bad idea since it communicates “we’re doing this,” assuming that users want these features and, of course, they’ll pay for them, and of course, there aren’t going to be adaptation concerns. This is never the case. Instead have a business outcome against your backlog items, describe the problem you’re solving and keep working till it is solved rather than the feature is marked “complete”. All modern organizations are learning organizations. Agile is not about doing things incrementally, its about doing experiments and learning incrementally. This book explains this concept from the product lens.

I read this as a book club read on my last role as a UX designer at bank. The intent was "hey this is how Silicon valley does it, let's to it like them"... I certainly appreciated the details and the thinking but this book is missing some key things. - There is no one-view process diagram / map to illustrate their process. This means as you read through it, you are constructing each prior step in your head, thus one big memory challenge. This makes it hard to follow along and know where you are in the process. This is also absurdly counter to much of what the book preaches - in terms of communicating ideas efficiently! - The last third (or more) of the book is dedicated to design research and low-fidelity design methods. If you have any experience as a design researcher or a designer, you are likely familiar with some (or all) of these. While a great reference for PMs / Dev, only pixel level designers would benefit from this information. Further there are better resources for design and research methods. - This book is actually lacking any visuals at all! It is nearly 100% words. It's a big miss in my mind. We don't develop products with words only! - I had to wonder if this was purposefully limited as a teaser for consulting work with his agency. If so, my gripes wouldn't do them any favors. I did like the short chapters, as you could make good progress reading in just a few minutes. He also lists several techniques that tech behemoths use effectively (I can vouch for them!). In summary - this is worth a read if you are in product development, but you will be wanting more visuals to describe process and examples, not just a book of words!

This has become my bible for my career in product. Marty Cagan gets it. He quickly and concisely points to how to run product "right" and how to avoid the pitfalls that are so common in this profession. While I doubt any company is perfectly aligned with his principles, he gives vision for where you can be. If you are in product or work in close proximity of product you will smile as he describes the things we do (the good and bad) and turn thoughtful as you consider his ideas. Cagan does not tell you exactly what to do, but names the problem, and gives guidance that is helpful for you to create your own solution in your specific situation. Much of the content can be found in his blog posts found on the Silicon Valley Product Group site which I see as a good thing for two reasons. 1) you can pass on the info easily by just sending a link and 2) it shows that he did not just write a book to write a book, but this is an accumulation of experience and thought that has culminated in this book. Thank you Mr. Cagan. I took gobs of notes. Here are some of my favorites: * Two Inconvenient Truths about Product 1. The first truth is that at least half of our ideas are just not going to work. 2. The second inconvenient truth is that even with the ideas that do prove to have potential, it typically takes several iterations to get the implementation of this idea to the point where it delivers the necessary business value. * typical roadmaps are the root cause of most waste and failed efforts in product organizations. * If you want to DISCOVER great products, it really is essential that you get your ideas in front of real users and customers early and often. If you want to DELIVER great products, you want to use best practices for engineering and try not to override the engineers' concerns. * the product organization is not there “to serve the business” but, rather, to solve problems for our customers in ways that work for our business.

ótimas condições, livro muito bom para quem trabalha com produtos digitais

Muhteşem bir kitap, kötü ve özensiz bir teslimat, bembeyaz ciltli kapak siyah kirlerle dolu olarak geldi.

What I like about the book is the way how everything about product management is explained. I would recommend this book for any person who aspire to become a product manager for a tech company. This book easily is worth 5 star rating because it reveals all that you need to know on how great products are being created. To solve customer problems and why it’s important to be in love with the problem rather than the solution.

I’m honest, I probably didn’t like the book at the beginning, I thought the author described a role and an organisation that was too black or white. I decided to go ahead and keep reading and this turned out to be one of the best books I’ve ever read. It was truly inspirational although in my opinion it’s more useful for experienced product managers and quite top line level. If you haven’t read it yet, another great book that you can read after this one is “The Lean Product Playbook”. If you liked this, you won’t be disappointed!

Marty Cagan's "Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love" is a classic book on product management. The book is a helpful guide for creating the right product culture for success. Cagan shares his experiences and insights from his storied career in product management, which took him from HP to Netscape to eBay, where he served as senior VP of Product Management and Design. The book is an easy read with lots of valuable advice. Cagan is a big fan of spelling out lists, which makes it easy to follow. The book covers the four product risks: usability risk, value risk, feasibility risk, and business viability risk. It also covers the importance of tackling risks upfront, instead of at the end, and defining products and their overall brand. While the book may not be for complete newcomers to tech or to product, it is ideal for someone with three months to thirty years of experience working in some capacity with a product team. The book is not filled with examples or stories from the trenches of product management, but it still doesn’t feel too theoretical or “fluffy”. Overall, "Inspired" is a valuable resource for anyone looking to create tech products that customers love. It is a must-read for product managers, designers, and engineers who want to build great products that solve real problems. Recommendation: I highly recommend "Inspired" to anyone who wants to learn more about product management and how to create products that customers love. It is a valuable resource that provides practical advice and insights that can be applied to any product development process.