Brian de Haaff

I often get asked the following during interviews: "What will make someone excel in X role?" The answer is always the same. It is about a series of values (and of course, the basic skills). But mostly, it is about self-motivation and effort. Now, this assumes the company and manager provide you with clear goals, support, and space to excel. On the flip side, if I were searching for a new role, I would prioritize finding an area I was passionate about, and a team whose values aligned with my own.

What do you do when a teammate misinterprets data and makes the wrong conclusion? Is your instinct to immediately correct them?

Product marketers never thought of themselves or wanted to work in sales. That is what I think makes it particularly tough these days. You need to do "all the things" while you keep looking for "the thing." And then you need to double down on "the thing." Getting to the essence takes courage and a relentless focus on what actually is moving customers forward in a way that creates value for them and the company.

Here is something "human" I recently noticed that we can celebrate. People now just instinctively turn their cameras on for web meetings. Even customers. It was not that long ago that I had to plead with or shame people into turning them on. It is really nice to see you.

I often worried that I did not have a technical degree. That passed over time as I realized my value was understanding what customers needed and being able to position it in market in a differentiated way. And now I can actually build applications. Who would have guessed? Strange times – especially for all the kids who got a liberal arts degree and their parents wondered what they would do with their life. We are doing just fine, thank you

We started Aha! almost 13 years ago. And every day now feels more like those early days than ever before. Customer enthusiasm for our vision of the future of product development assisted by AI is energizing. I was just on two calls where customers are already making their business cases to use Aha! Builder. We are bootstrapped and profitable. And remote-first. No VC pressure. No drama. We build to create value for customers and the team. It is an exciting time. We are hiring across product, engineering, customer success, and marketing: lnkd.in/biwTsnF

Here is something lovely I recently noticed that we can celebrate. People now just instinctively turn their cameras on for web meetings. Even customers. It was not that long ago that I had to plead with or shame people into turning them on. It is really nice to see you.

I have been writing a lot lately about vibe coding versus PM coding. On March 12, I am going to show you what I mean. It is the first public demo of Aha! Builder. I will walk through how we built it to work the way product managers think — starting with strategy. I hope you can join us. aha.io/academy/events…

The majority of product managers I have known have worried about not being technical enough. I certainly did for years early in my career. I am not sure anyone will worry about that anymore — aside from being technical enough to understand your customers and what they are trying to do. You must have a product vision and user empathy, but I am not sure you need to know about the underlying tech stack moving forward.

Vibe coding is often just wandering through intuition and feelings. It is about what feels good in the moment. PM coding is about what product managers do best: having a clear vision and user understanding. One is a feeling — the other is based on deep thinking. aha.io/blog/vibe-codi…

Early access to Aha! Builder just opened. We are busy inviting teams in that are eager to build something meaningful. After weeks of hearing which applications product managers want to create, we finally get to see it happen. aha.io/blog/aha-build…

People see Aha! Builder and immediately start listing what they want to create. This week we spoke with a group of product leaders who mentioned creating an internal NPS tracker to bring together data from multiple sources and look at it by persona. They also want to make robust prototypes for end users to interact with and give feedback before they start building. This is exactly what product managers are now doing in the Aha! Builder early access program. Let me know if you are interested in joining them.

Product managers have spent years drawing static boxes in slide decks. We called them wireframes — but let’s be honest, they were mostly just bad pictures. Those days are over. You can now build a robust prototype that is backed by a database in under an hour. And you can have real users test it and give you immediate feedback. That drives both better definition and greater PM accountability. With power comes responsibility. It's time to build boldly!

The customer calls about Aha! Builder have been the most fun I have had in a while. I have personally met with more than 100 product leaders at this point. No one asks what they should build. They already know — they have been thinking about the prototypes and trusted applications for some time. Now, they can just go build them. Early access to Aha! Builder opens today. You can still apply here: aha.io/blog/aha-build…

36 inches of snow in 24 hours. There is still nothing AI can do about that. The wilderness is still wild and nature can still ground you.

We could be wrong. But it is hard to see how right now. I have been trying not to exaggerate when I tell people that I think we're talking about a once in a 25-year impact with AI for software development. An Aha! Builder early access customer just nodded and agreed and stayed silent with a smile in a big group meeting. Then I got this email from them, “The last time I felt this level of conviction about a new product was during my first trial of Aha! back in 2014.”

This is one of the major benefits of bootstrapping your business and becoming profitable. You can invest in the communities you live and work in and help people who are not as fortunate as you are. No VC would allow you to "spend" in this way. It is one of the aspects of Aha! that I am most proud of. aha.io/blog/aha-commi…

If your neighborhood is like mine you have a tremendous amount of tree work going on and people keep texting you about it.

I never thought I would be able to go from user insight to working applications this quickly. Now that it is possible, the conversation with product managers is getting really interesting. This comes straight from talking with more than 40 product teams about Aha! Builder.

@lottite How would you prefer it worked?

@bdehaaff Slack

What is the internal tool at your company that everyone complains about but nobody has time to fix?