Product Fundamentals
This is the smallest version of a product that delivers core value to users.
What is an MVP?
This term describes machines performing tasks that normally require human intelligence.
What is artificial intelligence?
This metric represents the percentage of users who return to your product within a given time frame.
What is retention rate?
This term describes when a company builds products that expand beyond its original market to capture more user value — something Meta did moving from social media to VR.
What is diversification?
“Pied Piper” was a fictional startup featured in this tech comedy series.
What is Silicon Valley?
A prioritization framework that evaluates Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort
What is RICE?
This technology allows AI models to learn from large amounts of text, code, or images.
What are large language models (LLMs)?
This metric estimates the total revenue a customer brings over their entire relationship.
What is LTV (Lifetime Value)?
This framework, used by Google and many others, helps teams set and track measurable goals aligned to company strategy.
What are OKRs?
“Move fast and break things” was the original motto of this company.
What is Facebook?
This tool helps communicate product direction and priorities over time.
What is a product roadmap?
This type of AI uses past data to make predictions about future events.
What is predictive AI?
Single, measurable product metric that best captures the core value your product delivers to customers
North Star Metric (NSM)
A strategic approach where a company serves a narrow market with highly specialized offerings.
What is a niche strategy?
This company pioneered the “freemium” business model, offering core functionality for free while charging for premium features.
What is Spotify?
In Agile, this is a short, time-boxed iteration for development.
What is a sprint?
The ethical concept ensuring AI systems are transparent, fair, and accountable.
What is responsible AI?
This type of analysis involves organizing data points into groups based on similarities to find new patterns without initial assumptions
What is cluster analysis?
This type of innovation focuses on expanding into adjacent product categories — like Netflix moving from DVD rentals to streaming to gaming.
What is adjacent innovation?
This company uses the “Working Backwards” method, starting with a PR/FAQ.
What is Amazon?
This single metric best captures the product’s core value to users.
What is a North Star Metric?
The term for human feedback used to fine-tune models like ChatGPT.
What is reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF)?
For a platform product that has strong network effects, where the value of the product increases with the number of users, this metric is the most effective measure of sustainable growth and defensibility.
What is the viral coefficient?
In product strategy, this term describes when a company deliberately builds advantages that are hard for competitors to copy.
What is a sustainable competitive advantage?
Steve Jobs described the personal computer as this “for the mind.”
What is a bicycle for the mind?