The Top 20 YouTube Videos on Product Management
Below is a research-backed, hand‑curated playlist of twenty exceptional YouTube talks every product manager (and product leader or consultant) should watch. I’ve included a short synopsis of what you’ll learn from each video, plus why it matters—especially when you’re driving strategy, coaching teams, or advising clients. Links to each video are included.
The bar for great product work is higher than ever. In 2022, software firms leaning primarily on product‑led motions “increased their revenue… about twice as fast” as peers with little or no PLG focus, according to Bain. (Bain) At the same time, the growth climate got tougher: OpenView found that only one‑fifth of SaaS companies grew ≥75% YoY in 2023, down from 49% in 2021—so execution and focus matter. (OpenView) No surprise, then, that 97% of SaaS professionals said their companies were investing in more product‑led experiences in 2023. (Appcues)
Top performers also invest differently: a McKinsey digital strategy survey reports they were 63% more likely than non‑outperformers to allocate resources to innovate on new products or markets. (McKinsey & Company) And companies that excel at experience‑led growth (tying research, design, product, and go‑to‑market to measurable customer outcomes) tend to outperform on revenue growth. (McKinsey & Company)
Use these talks to sharpen strategy, improve discovery, align stakeholders, and build the organizational muscle that drives durable, compounding results.
Marty Cagan — The Nature of Product
Synopsis: Cagan dissects why most products underperform, contrasting empowered, mission‑driven product teams with feature factories. Clear, hard‑won lessons from decades at Netscape, eBay, and SVPG.
Why it matters: If you advise or lead teams, this is the fastest way to reset expectations around what modern product teams should own and how they operate.
Watch:
Marty Cagan — Product Teams: The Best vs. The Rest
Synopsis: A blunt walkthrough of the capability gaps separating elite product organizations from everyone else (product vision, discovery cadence, and empowered decision‑making).
Why it matters: Use it as an audit checklist with your team or clients; it maps directly to org design and talent decisions.
Watch:
Teresa Torres — Justify Your Product Decisions & Get Stakeholder Buy‑In (MTPcon SF Closing Keynote)
Synopsis: Teresa shows how continuous discovery habits—and especially the Opportunity Solution Tree—create traceable lines from outcomes → opportunities → solutions → tests.
Why it matters: If you struggle with HiPPOs or stakeholder churn, this gives you a repeatable way to make decisions legible and defensible.
Watch:
Kevin Hale (Y Combinator) — How to Build Products Users Love
Synopsis: Concrete heuristics for building lovable products: reduce time‑to‑value, craft clear affordances, and obsess over the first run.
Why it matters: “Love” isn’t fluffy—it’s a proxy for engagement, retention, and word‑of‑mouth. Great for early‑stage PMs and advisors.
Watch:
Michael Seibel (Y Combinator) — How to Plan an MVP
Synopsis: No‑nonsense guidance on scope, iteration, and validating the core of an idea before you polish.
Why it matters: Cuts through analysis paralysis—and gives you crisp language to reset stakeholder expectations around MVP vs. v1.
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**Gibson Biddle — Netflix’s 2022 Product Strategy (DHMs, Strategy, Metrics) **
Synopsis: Biddle’s “DHMs” (Delight, Hard‑to‑Copy, Margin‑Enhancing) model, applied to Netflix’s evolving strategy, makes abstract strategy operational.
Why it matters: A field‑tested way to connect product bets to durable advantage and profit.
Watch:
Gibson Biddle — How to Amplify Your Product Sense
Synopsis: Practical exercises and case studies to strengthen product taste: write press releases, define anti‑goals, and pressure‑test delighters.
Why it matters: Product sense can be trained; this shows how. Great for leveling up PMs and interview prep.
Watch:
Rahul Vohra (Superhuman) — How We Built an Engine to Find Product‑Market Fit
Synopsis: The famous PMF survey (Sean Ellis score), segmented and looped into the roadmap to systematically increase “very disappointed” responses.
Why it matters: A pragmatic, quantitative playbook for moving from promising to pulling.
Watch:
Andrew Chen — How to Build Growth Loops
Synopsis: Chen moves beyond funnels and one‑shot channels to compounding growth loops—supply, demand, content, and monetary loops—with pitfalls and trade‑offs.
Why it matters: If sustainable growth is on your plate, loops beat hacks; this is the best 1‑hour introduction.
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Dan Olsen — The Lean Product Playbook: Achieving Product‑Market Fit
Synopsis: Olsen’s structured path from target customer → underserved needs → value hypothesis → MVP → metrics.
Why it matters: Use this as a facilitation spine for discovery workshops with teams that need rigor.
Watch:
Des Traynor (Intercom) — Product Strategy Is About Saying No
Synopsis: Des reframes strategy as choosing what not to build; he shows how to shape principles, prune requests, and keep your story coherent.
Why it matters: Especially helpful for B2B teams drowning in roadmap requests—this is ammo for outcome‑centric prioritization.
Watch:
Ryan Singer (Shape Up) — A Better Way to Plan, Build, and Ship Products
Synopsis: The Shape Up method—shape before you build, work in six‑week cycles, and treat scope as variable—reduces thrash and increases team autonomy.
Why it matters: If your org lives in Jira tickets and misses the big picture, this talk shows how to ship meaningful slices again.
Watch:
Roman Pichler — How to Create a Powerful Product Vision
Synopsis: Roman’s Product Vision Board ties together target users, their needs, key features, and business goals into a shareable artifact.
Why it matters: Vision is often hand‑wavy; this gives you a crisp, portable format to align executives and teams.
Watch:
Janna Bastow — Building Better Roadmaps (Mind the Product)
Synopsis: Introduces outcome‑based roadmapping and the “Now‑Next‑Later” format—communicating priorities without fake delivery dates.
Why it matters: The simplest way to escape feature‑factory planning and make roadmaps truthful and useful.
Watch:
Shreyas Doshi — A Masterclass on Execution: What Makes PMs OK, Very Good, and Great (Lenny’s Podcast Live)
Synopsis: Frameworks like LNO (Leverage, Neutralize, Optimize), pre‑mortems, and the three levels of product work—plus how to spend time at each level.
Why it matters: Execution quality differentiates teams with the same ideas; this is a tour of the craft.
Watch:
Julie Zhuo — Principles of Building Great Products
Synopsis: The former Facebook VP of Product Design shares practices for aligning teams, communicating clearly, and making product decisions at scale.
Why it matters: PMs live in cross‑functional ambiguity; Zhuo’s principles help you lead through influence.
Watch:
Bob Moesta — The Ultimate Guide to Jobs‑to‑Be‑Done
Synopsis: JTBD, explained by a co‑architect of the method. How to interview for progress, identify forces, and define demand in customers’ own words.
Why it matters: Perfect for PMs who need to get beyond personas and into causality.
Watch:
Itamar Gilad — Evidence‑Guided Product Development
Synopsis: Replace opinion‑based bets with evidence‑guided ones via GIST (Goals‑Ideas‑Steps‑Tasks), the Confidence Meter, and experiment taxonomies.
Why it matters: If you want to de‑risk roadmaps and improve hit rates, this is a practical operating system.
Watch:
Ken Norton — 10x, Not 10%: Moonshot Product Management
Synopsis: Norton argues for step‑change thinking (and the conditions that enable it) rather than incrementalism.
Why it matters: Useful when your strategy needs breakout bets—and you must shepherd execs and teams into higher‑variance opportunities.
Watch:
Melissa Perri — Escaping the Build Trap
Synopsis: Perri shows how organizations slide into shipping features over outcomes—and how to rebuild product strategy, discovery, and governance to deliver value.
Why it matters: If your team ships a lot and moves little, this is the turnaround manual.
Watch:
How to get the most from this playlist
Anchor on outcomes. Before you watch, pick one business outcome you care about (e.g., improve activation by 20%) and note what frameworks you’ll test next week—OSTs (Torres), DHMs (Biddle), or a PMF survey (Vohra).
Turn talks into workshops. Run a 90‑minute session: 15‑minute excerpt → 60‑minute hands‑on exercise → 15‑minute commitments. Singer’s shaping, Roman’s vision board, or Janna’s Now‑Next‑Later all translate well.
Institutionalize evidence. Borrow Gilad’s Confidence Meter to grade proposals before they hit the roadmap; track how confidence changes as you run tests.
Coach to behaviors. Use Cagan’s “best vs. rest” as a coaching rubric; use Shreyas’s “three levels of product work” to rebalance where PMs spend their time.
A few data points you can quote in stakeholder decks
“Software firms with a primarily product‑led growth strategy increased their revenue in 2022 about twice as fast as those with little or no PLG.” (Bain)
In 2023, 97% of SaaS professionals said their companies were investing in delivering more product‑led experiences. (Appcues)
Only 20% of surveyed SaaS companies grew ≥75% YoY in 2023, down from 49% in 2021. (OpenView)
Top‑performing companies were 63% more likely to allocate resources to innovate on new products or markets. (McKinsey & Company)
Experience‑led growth leaders tend to outperform on revenue growth across industries. (McKinsey & Company)
Final note
If you’re building or advising a product organization, use these videos to create a shared language: outcomes over output, discovery before delivery, fixed time/variable scope, evidence before opinion. Then translate that shared language into your processes, metrics, and rituals. That’s how great talks turn into great products.