The FishmanAF Newsletter - possibly the most fun newsletter on Substack.

Each week I’ll tackle questions about growth, product management, working with and managing people, and being a Dad in the startup world. For now this is a free newsletter; eventually I might add a paid subscription.

Love for the FishmanAF Newsletter

“One of my employees printed out How to Hire for Growth Employees and is going to put it on his wall.”

“I have nothing to say about the growth experiment doc by Adam. It is just spectacular. He is the Growth Daddy, or the Growth God, whatever, no difference."

“Thanks for your post about parenting and work today. It was very refreshing to read an honest and open perspective on the very delicate and tough balance.”

“Thank you very much for the advice! I think you just saved me quite a lot of swirling around in my own head, and I appreciate it.”

“I wanted to let you know I loved the succinctness and thoughtfulness of many of your responses.”

Love for the Startup Dad Podcast

“THANK YOU SO MUCH for launching the Startup Dad podcast! There are so many startup podcasts with advice on how to build your business. There are so few addressing the intricacies of personal/startup life like yours.”

“I f-ing love your podcast. Probably the most real and genuine convos on casts in such a long time. I also love the theme of personal challenges and struggle. It resonates so much and I know its not just me - we are all dealing with loss and we never talk about it. Some of these stories hearing what other people have been through has reminded us how human the process of loss is and to be grateful for what we have. Anyway love this pod man. You are favorited in my apple pod section.”

“Love this podcast. People treat work like it exists solely on its own. I love hearing about the combination of work and personal stuff. Such a great intimate conversation that feels different from the other blah podcasts out there. It’s an automatic listen for me each week.”

Some of my most popular articles:

Growth

• How to hire for Growth Part 1

• How to hire for for Growth Part 2

• The Growth Competency Model: A guide to building high performing Growth teams

• Building a Growth Strategy

• Org Structure: To Centralize or Decentralize Growth Teams?

• When Branding is a Growth Strategy (Part 1)

• When Branding is a Growth Strategy (Part 2)

• Experimentation - Creating an Experiment Document

• How to setup a Weekly Business Review

• Monetization - balancing pricing, value proposition and acquisition channels

• What does a Growth Advisor do?

• Five Tenets of a Successful Growth Team

• Don’t call it Growth Hacking

Product Management

• WTF is Strategy? What it takes to build great strategy.

• Evaluating Product Investments

• Motion vs. Progress - changing product culture to deliver results

• The Growing Specialization of Product Management (1 of 2)

• How to Navigate Product Management Specializations (2 of 2)

• Product Briefs, not PRDs (with template)

• How to Improve the Relationship between Product and Marketing

• Managing Parenthood and a Career in Product Leadership

Career

• The New PMF: A framework for candidates to evaluate companies

• Reverse Interviewing: How to interview a company as well as they interview you

• Your Activation Experience: Onboarding successfully in your first 90 days

• How to find and choose a Coach

• How and why to create a User Manual

Company Culture & Management

• How to do annual planning better than you’re doing it today

• Taking a Parenting Class Made Me a Better Manager (and Parent)

Failure Stories

• Volume 1: Elena Verna and Leah Tharin

• Volume 2: Tom Willerer - Netflix, Opendoor, Coursera

Startup Dad Podcast

• Episode 0: Introduction

• Episode 1: Building a company and family, the responsibility cloak, mistakes and setting irrevocable guidelines | Nick Soman (father of 2, Decent, Gusto, Amazon)

• Episode 2: The importance of role models, raising a child with special needs, advocating for your kids | Adam Grenier (father of 3, Eventbrite, Masterclass, Uber)

• Episode 3: Raising kids without a support network and surprising aspects of fatherhood | Alex Cohen (father of 2, Carbon Health, Spendoso, Angel Investor)

• Episode 4: Starting a family while broke, how to navigate divorce with young kids | Buster Benson (father of 2, PM at Medium, Author, Founder)

• Episode 5: Lessons from his mother, consistency in parenting and having teenagers | Fareed Mosavat (father of 2, CDO at Reforge, Product Leader)

• Episode 6: Coping with the loss of a child and protecting your time | Brian Balfour (father of 2, CEO and founder of Reforge, venture partner)

• Episode 7: Watching your kids first experiences and quality v. quantity time | Darius Contractor (father of 2, CGO at Otter.ai, Growth and Product Leader)

• Episode 8: Feeling ready for kids and being social chair of your marriage | Mike Duboe (father of 2, GP at Greylock)

• Episode 9: Amazing frameworks for raising three boys | Matt Greenberg (father of 3, fmr CTO at Reforge)

• Episode 10: Balance, the default parent to teenagers and being married to a parenting PhD | Josh Herzig-Marx and Carla Naumburg (parents of 2, Tech Exec and Best-selling Parenting Author)

• Episode 11: Emotional intelligence, navigating race and fatherhood in the UK | Ben Williams (father of 2, advisor at PLGeek.com)