#71: we're so back
PM news, expert insights, Community and Conference updates, open roles, and events to help you grow your career and network.
📝 2026
This Newsletter is written by humans with grammar check from Claude.
We’re 12 days into 2026, so let me hopefully be the last person to wish you a happy new year.
I am so happy to have taken 2 weeks off, where I even deleted the LinkedIn app from my screen. And damn is it so hard to open it again, with AI it’s so great for fixing my calendar, building anything, and Lovable is everywhere again.
I might cope that it’s part of the build in public journey and indeed a community builder lives on LinkedIn…
New year comes also with new motivations and pushing for a new goal. I’ve been researching and listening to podcasts about that, and recommending a few why new year is indeed a social moment where we collectively restart and reboot ourselves despite most of our commitments fading within a week and by January. Schade!
So let’s write here to feel accountable and revisit next year, while I would love to push the community to share their goals and feel accountable.
2026 Goals
400+ Conference Participants
Launching and get first 100 Leaders Studio Members
First 2 hires at ProductLab (most probably Marketing and Ops)
Learn more about GTM strategies and growing our YouTube Channel
Lose 10 KG
Long trip after the Conference
400+ Conference Participants
We had in 2025, for a first time, unknown conference, more or less established brand 200+ participants and 250 in total. 400+ is a bit of a goal to make sure we can rent an astonishing venue that this year goes to Kino International, which after 3 years is finally restored. Our 3 year goal is to arrive at a 500 conference, manageable and with the right number for people to connect and meet rather than feel lost and can’t have different touch moments and bonding. It’s also something I believe for a tech city like Berlin is missing to represent what we are building here and how we interpret building products. But also it’s the place and the excuse where you can invite top professionals from abroad and in one place like-minded people that are improving in their career and staying up to date while expanding their network to become future proof. Regarding the conference you can expect amazing news EOM, new website, format, and an astonishing conference board members group to help navigate the quality and success for this year.
Launching and get first 100 Leaders Studio Members
I have been testing dinners, chats and being a leader or becoming one is pretty lonely. All the skills to be a top PM don’t really count when stakeholder management, communication and coaching your team is becoming a new requirement. That is why with Lucie McLean we did different POCs and are launching end of the month a 5 months group coaching with strong sPMs that are moving to Leaders Roles. Side by side we’ll conduct discovery chats with established leaders to understand if a community for people managers and their need to become better and more accountable in those dynamics. IMO this also something aligned with ProductLab’s vision:
ProductLab helps product people grow — in craft, confidence, and leadership — through connections and hands-on learning that leads to career and economical outcomes.
The more we are moving to AI tools, agents, skip communication, or living in a recap world where people go on autopilot and lowering even more the attention to things, the more I believe 2026 and beyond will be a request for more community and IRL connections.
First 2 hires at ProductLab (most probably Marketing and Ops)
This is really tight from the success of the first 2, despite we applied for a public grant to expand our offer, and we can achieve sooner. You can go fast alone but you go far away with great people. At the moment conference is a heavy business with tons of expenses, and most of companies run on marketing budget, so balance with a more flex and scalable offer might give us the edge to finally hire top talents and grow the bootstrapped journey. Sometimes I feel intimidated reading all the AI headlines where they make 200M ARR in the first year, and myself dreaming for 0.5M ARR for this year. How a wise man like Marcus Aurelius would say and something for many PMs that are building something in parallel,
the idea that comparing yourself to others steals time, focus, and joy.
I should embrace that this is a completely different business that sits near many other successful in one single space called LinkedIn, which I should learn to handle better.
Learn more about GTM strategies and growing our YouTube Channel
When building products gets easier, GTM and branding will be the thing for this year, and also to become future proof for myself. YouTube is the place where we consume easily more content and reach people outside Berlin and for myself raising the bar to experimenting podcast, research and connections.
Lose 10 KG
Hard one, and tried and failed many times. I do running and playing football but sounds to me always more to stay in movement than really doing sport, and losing weight doesn’t come without a strong diet, as my friend and coach Fabio would say. Too many events, pizzas and drinks at events, and a tooth for sugar doesn’t help. Close to obesity I see more fatigue and I will test this quarter narrowing down sugar, carbs and note my intake on Yazio (which seems the Duolingo for food), bought a new pair of Brooks and will say that running with the snow is actually very beautiful.
If you live near Humboldthain park and are up for running or joining our football club, dm me on LinkedIn.
Long trip after the Conference
The 2025 cut all the expenses to make through a conference and have enough to float, 2026 comes with in mind to grow and 2027 to reach mental and financial peace. Would love to fully detach with the family and having a long trip, possibly Patagonia, Laos, or Tibet. I saw many photos from friends, and I miss the feeling of being far, outside a bubble and seeing things differently.
Things I listened or read to get to some conclusions and inspired
The Diary Of A CEO: Chris Williamson: If You Don’t Fix This Now, 2026 Is Already Over! and Shaolin Warrior Master: Hidden Epidemic Nobody Talks About! This Modern Habit Is Killing Millions!
📰 Product Leaders’ Wisdom
Brought to you weekly by Leila Montazeri
What actually drove growth in 2025? Kyle Poyar gathered 130 real growth experiments and found a clear pattern: most wins didn’t come from shiny AI tricks, but from well-executed fundamentals. Outbound and ABM powered by real intent signals, partner ecosystems that borrow existing audiences, and events that create genuine engagement all outperformed expectations. For product and GTM leaders, this is a reminder that strategy, signal quality, and execution still matter more than tools.
Read the full piece: The Best Growth Tactics of 2025 by Kyle Poyar.In his new essay, Ryan McEntush argues that today’s products, from smartphones to cars, robots, and drones, are built on the same core stack. The real product advantage no longer lives in surface features, but in how teams design, integrate, and scale shared modules like computers, batteries, sensors, and software. A sharp read for product leaders thinking beyond features and toward systems, platforms, and long-term leverage.
Always busy, but not sure you’re working on the right things? John Cutler maps out 10 prioritization traps PMs fall into, reactive work that never ends, “top priorities” that don’t drop anything else, over-polishing, and long-running bets with no clear exit. A sharp reminder that prioritization is less about frameworks and more about focus, trade-offs, and learning faster.
💪 Open Roles
Brought to you weekly by Alessia Marchi
🎶 Song of the Newsletter
From our DJ Marco D’Avila