Community Mailbag #2: What's happening around the FishmanAF Community

Lenny's Pod, Amplitude, and I answer a mailbag question or two

Hi there, it’s Adam. 🤗 Welcome to my weekly newsletter. I started this newsletter to provide a no-bullshit, guided approach to solving some of the hardest problems for people and companies. That includes Growth, Product, company building and parenting while working. Subscribe and never miss an issue. Questions? Ask them here.

This is a community mailbag edition of my newsletter. I’ll address community questions that I think are interesting to a wider audience and I may follow-up with a longer post on the topic in the future.

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A lot is happening!

There is A LOT happening in and around the newsletter community this week so I wanted to share a brief round-up.

If you want to hear the dulcet tones of my voice (and Lenny Rachitsky) you can listen to the two of us banter back and forth for an hour on his most recent podcast episode.

Podcast Links

YouTube:

Apple:

Website: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/

We cover a bunch of topics, including:

The Growth Competency Model

This is the first time I've talked about my thoughts on this since writing it awhile back. It helps founders and leaders identify the specific competencies you can use to hire, provide feedback, and build high-performing and balanced Growth teams.

Product Onboarding and Activation

One of my favorite topics and something I've worked on at a ton of companies. This is the key to unlocking the "aha" moments, creating habitual product usage and ultimately healthy retention.

The New PMF and how to evaluate a company as a prospective employee

I've written about many of these topics but with Lenny I got to tell some fun stories and surface a lot of new concepts that I've never discussed before. Give it a listen and a like to help out Lenny!

Amplitude Cohort 2022

Sometimes I’m amazed at how professional I can look!

I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining Amplitude at Cohort 2022 to discuss and present on driving growth in 2023. Let me know if you’ll be there in person, I’d love to say hello!

You can register for the event for free here: amplitude.com/cohortsf22   

I’m going to be talking about the Growth Competency Model and this will be the FIRST TIME I’m giving a talk about this so come for the bloopers and hilarious outtakes, stay for the knowledge.

🔥 Hot Takes in the Wild 🔥

My friends at Reforge included my Annual Planning Hot Take in their most recent community newsletter. I also got a lot of private messages after writing it that looked something like this:

Mailbag Question

“How do you balance having two young kids with all of your professional endeavors?”

Someone in the Growth Series kickoff asked me how I balance having two young kids with all my professional endeavors. I’ll write a longer post on this at some point but here’s my brief response:

First, I want to acknowledge that we still have different expectations between men and women when it comes to caregiving. This is terrible and needs to change. I’m doing my part to help.

As to balance:

1. It was harder when they were young - now that they're in school it's a little easier during the week.

2. It's still really hard. One week I was trying to wrap up a newsletter post and my son got sick and had to stay home from school for two days. I was with him. So newsletter post didn't happen. That's just life.

3. I try to construct my life in a way where my schedule allows me to also do things for/with my family. I try to maximize income and minimize time.

4. We have help. Couldn't do it without a fantastic partner and some childcare support. My partner ALSO works full time though and she has even less time than me!

5. Sometimes I'm just not good at one or the other thing one week. Sometimes that's parenting. Sometimes that's work. I've gotten over it 🙂.

That’s it for this week! See you next week.