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Learning Faster Than the Market

4d ago 1:00:38

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When I sit down with product leaders who’ve spent decades shaping how Silicon Valley builds products, I’m always struck by how their career arcs echo the very lessons they now teach. Michael Margolis is no exception.

Michael started his career as an anthropologist, stumbled into educational software in the late 90s, helped scale Gmail during its formative years, and eventually became one of the first design researchers at Google Ventures (GV). For fifteen years, he sat at the intersection of startups and product discovery, helping founders learn faster, save years of wasted effort, and—sometimes—kill their darlings before they drained all the fuel.

In our conversation, Michael didn’t just share war stories. He laid out a concrete, repeatable framework for product teams—whether you’re a PM at a FAANG company or a fresh hire at a Series A startup—on how to cut through noise, get to the truth, and accelerate learning cycles.

This post is my attempt to capture those lessons. If you’re an early to mid-career PM in Silicon Valley trying to sharpen your craft, this is for you.

From Anthropology to Gmail: The Value of Unorthodox Beginnings

Michael’s path to Google wasn’t a linear “go to Stanford CS, join a startup, IPO” narrative. Instead, he started in anthropology and educational software, producing floppy-disk learning titles at The Learning Company and Electronic Arts. That detour turned out to be foundational.

“Studying anthropology was my introduction to usability and ethnography,” Michael told me. “It gave me a lens to look at people’s behaviors not just as data points but as cultural patterns.”

For PMs, the lesson is clear: don’t discount the odd chapters of your own career. That sales job, that nonprofit internship, or that side hustle in teaching can become your secret weapon later. Michael carried those anthropology muscles into Gmail, where understanding human behavior at scale was just as critical as writing code.

Actionable Advice for PMs:

* Audit your own “non-linear” career experiences. What hidden skills—interviewing, pattern-recognition, narrative-building—could you bring into product work?

* When hiring, don’t filter only for straight-line resumes. The best PMs often bring unexpected perspectives.

The Google Years: Scaling Research at Hyper-speed

Michael joined Gmail in 2006, when it was still young but maturing fast. He quickly noticed how different the rhythm was compared to the slow, expensive ethnographic studies he had done for consulting clients like Walmart.com.

“At Walmart,” he explained, “I had to compress these big, long expensive projects into something faster. Gmail demanded that same speed, but at enormous scale.”

At Google, the prime “clients” for his research were often designers. The questions he answered were things like: How do we attract Outlook users? How do we make the interface intuitive enough for mass adoption?

This difference matters for PMs: in big companies, research questions often start downstream—how to refine, polish, or optimize. In startups, questions live upstream: What should we build at all? Knowing where you sit in that spectrum changes the kind of research (and product bets) you should prioritize.

Jumping to Google Ventures: Bringing UXR Into VC

In 2010, Michael made a bold move: leaving the mothership to become one of the very first design researchers embedded inside a venture capital firm. GV was trying to differentiate itself by not just writing checks but also offering operational help—design, hiring, PR.

“I got lucky,” he recalled. “GV had already hired Braden Kowitz as their design partner, and Braden said, ‘I need a researcher.’ That was my break.”

Working with founders was a shock. They didn’t act like Google PMs. “It was like they were playing by a different set of rules. They’d say, ‘Here’s where we’re going. You can help me, or get out of my way.’”

That forced Michael to reinvent how he showed value. Instead of writing reports that might sit unread, he had to deliver insights in real-time, in ways founders couldn’t ignore.

The Watch Party Method: Stop Writing Reports

Here’s where the gold nuggets come in. Michael realized traditional reports weren’t cutting it. Instead, he invented what he calls “watch parties.”

“I don’t do the research study unless the whole team watches,” he said. “I compress it into a day—five interviews with bullseye customers, the whole team in a virtual backroom. By the end, they’ve seen it all, they’re debriefing themselves, and alignment happens automatically. I haven’t written a report in years.”

Think about that. No 30-page decks. No long hand-offs. Just visceral, shared observation.

Actionable Advice for PMs:

* Next time you run a user test, insist that at least your core team attends live. Skip the sanitized recap slides.

* At the end of a session, have the team summarize their top three takeaways. When they say it, it sticks.

Bullseye Customers: Getting Uncomfortably Specific

One of Michael’s most powerful contributions is the bullseye customer exercise.

“A bullseye customer,” he explained, “is the very specific subset of your target market who is most likely to adopt your product first. The key is to define not just inclusion criteria but also exclusion criteria.”

Founders (and PMs) often resist narrowing. They want to believe their TAM is huge. But Michael’s method forces rigor. He described grilling teams until they admit things like: Actually, if this person doesn’t work from home, they probably won’t care. Or if they’ve never paid for a premium tool, they won’t convert.

Example: Imagine you’re building a new coffee subscription. Your bullseye might be: Remote tech workers in San Francisco, ages 25-35, who already spend $50+ per month on specialty coffee, and who like experimenting with new roasters. If your product doesn’t delight them, it won’t magically resonate with “all coffee drinkers.”

Actionable Advice for PMs:

* Write down both inclusion and exclusion criteria for your bullseye.

* Add triggers: life events that make adoption more likely (e.g., new job, new diagnosis, move to a new city).

* Recruit five people who fit it exactly. If they’re lukewarm, rethink your product.

Why Five Interviews Is Enough

Michael swears by the number five.

“After three interviews, you’re not sure if it’s a pattern,” he said. “By five, you hit data saturation. Everyone sees the signal. Any more and the team is begging you to stop so they can make changes.”

For PMs under pressure, this is liberating. You don’t need 100 customer calls. You need five of the right customers, observed by the right team members, in a compressed timeframe.

Multiple Prototypes: Don’t Ask Customers to Imagine

Another Margolis rule: never show just one prototype.

“If you show one, the team gets too attached, and the customer can only react. With three, I can say: compare and contrast. What do you love? What do you hate? I collect the Lego pieces and assemble the next iteration.”

Sometimes those prototypes aren’t even original mockups—they’re competitor landing pages. As Michael joked: “Have you tested your competitor’s prototypes? No? Then you’ve left something out.”

Actionable Advice for PMs:

* When exploring value props, mock up three different landing pages. Don’t ask “Which do you prefer?” Instead ask: “Which elements matter most, and why?”

* Treat mild praise as a “no.” Only visceral excitement counts as signal.

Founders, Stubbornness, and the Henry Ford Trap

I pressed Michael on what happens when founders dismiss customer feedback by invoking Henry Ford’s famous line about “faster horses.”

He smiled. “The beauty of bullseye customers is it forces accountability. If you told me these people are your dream users, and they shrug, then you can’t hand-wave it away. Either change your customer definition or your product.”

This is a crucial lesson for PMs who work with visionary leaders. Conviction is necessary, but unchecked conviction can sink a product. Anchoring on bullseye customers creates a shared contract that keeps both egos and hypotheses grounded.

Bright Spots > Exit Interviews

When teams ask him to interview churned customers, Michael often refuses.

“There are a bazillion reasons people don’t use something,” he said. “It’s inefficient. Instead, I go find the bright spots—the power users who love it. I want to know why they’re on fire, and then go find more people like them.”

This “bright spot” focus helps PMs avoid premature pivots. Instead of chasing every no, double down on the yeses until you understand the common thread.

Case Study: Refrigerated Medications and Zipline

To illustrate, Michael shared a project with Zipline, the drone-delivery company. They wanted to deliver specialty medications. The core question: was speed or timing more important?

Through interviews, the bright spot insight emerged: refrigeration was the killer constraint. Patients didn’t care about “fastest possible” delivery in the abstract. They cared about not leaving refrigerated drugs on their porch.

That nuance completely changed the product and infrastructure design.

For PMs, the takeaway is that sometimes the decisive factor isn’t the flashy benefit you advertise (“we’re the fastest!”) but a practical detail you only uncover through careful listening.

AI and the Future of Research

We couldn’t avoid the AI question. Has it changed his process?

“I worry about how AI is creating distance between teams and customers,” Michael admitted. “If my bot talks to your bot and spits out a report, you miss the nuance. The power of research is in the stories, the details, the visceral reactions.”

That said, he does use AI for quick prototype copywriting and summaries. But he insists on live team observation for the real work.

For PMs, the advice is to use AI as an accelerant, not a replacement. Let it write the rough draft of your landing page copy, but don’t outsource customer empathy to a transcript.

What PMs Should Do Differently Tomorrow

Let’s distill Michael’s 15 years of wisdom into actionable steps you can implement this week:

* Define your bullseye. Write down exact inclusion, exclusion, and trigger criteria.

* Recruit five. Stop at five, but make them exact matches.

* Run a watch party. Get your designer, engineer, and PM peers in the virtual backroom. No observers, no insights.

* Prototype in threes. Landing pages are cheap. Competitor screenshots are free.

* Look for visceral reactions. Anything less than “Wait, can I get this now?” is a polite no.

* Study the bright spots. Find your power users and figure out what makes them glow.

* Compress cycles. The whole exercise—recruit, test, learn—should take days, not months.

Quotes Worth Remembering

To make these lessons stick, here are five quotes from Michael that every PM should tape to their desk:

* “I don’t do the research unless the whole team watches.”

* “A bullseye customer is the very specific subset of your target market most likely to adopt first.”

* “After five interviews, you hit data saturation. Everyone sees the pattern.”

* “If you show one prototype, the team gets too attached. With three, you collect the Lego pieces.”

* “Mild encouragement is a polite no. Only visceral excitement counts as yes.”

My Takeaways as a Coach and PM

Talking to Michael reinforced something I’ve seen in my own career: product failure often comes not from bad execution, but from weak learning cycles. Teams don’t test the right people, don’t synthesize together, and don’t act quickly on what they learn.

Michael’s methods aren’t magic—they’re discipline. They compress time, sharpen focus, and force alignment. Whether you’re building the next Gmail or the next startup idea in a Palo Alto garage, these principles apply.

If you’re an early to mid-career PM, start by practicing on a small scale. Don’t wait for your manager to bless a massive UXR budget. Run a five-person watch party with your next prototype. You’ll be surprised at how quickly the fog lifts.

Closing

If this resonated and you’re looking for deeper guidance, I also work 1:1 with PMs and executives on career, product, and leadership challenges. You can learn more at tomleungcoaching.com.

And if you haven’t yet, I’d love your input on my Future of Product Management survey. It only takes about 5 minutes, and by filling it out you’ll get early access to the results plus an invitation to a live readout with a panel of top product leaders. The survey explores how AI, team structures, and skill sets are reshaping the PM role for 2026 and beyond. You can find it on my Substack.

Let’s ship greatness.

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Learning Faster Than the Market

Fireside Product Management

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published 4d ago