De-risk Your Business

Increase your likelihood of success by addressing big risks quickly and thoroughly.

Video

Taking your Startup Idea from Vision to Value: A workshop series

Learn from a seasoned early-stage product strategist who will help you identify your early adopter market, develop and articulate your unique value proposition, and make a plan for building an MVP in this recorded workshop series.

Entrepreneur in Residence, Jordyn Bonds

Image of a person typing on a laptop with text reading thoughtbot Product Management

Blog

Product Management Ask Me Anything - Event recap

Summarizing all the gems shared by our Product Management team on product strategy and great teamwork.

Kelly Gebo, Associate Director at thoughtbot

Video screenshot of The cost of living crisis and what it means for technology and inset of Kelly Gebo

Blog

Our strategy for B2C founders during the cost of living crisis

Based on nearly 20 years of experience, thoughtbot’s suggestions for successful B2C product strategy during an economic downturn.

Kirsten Hurley, Managing Director, Launchpad II team

Blog

thoughtbot's new Research & Strategy Playbook

Sharing some of our best learnings from thoughtbot's work to research an idea and create a solution or product strategy

thoughtbot team

Blog

How to decide if Jamstack is the right choice for your MVP

Using Jamstack to build initial MVPs can improve product scalability, performance, and flexibility to use third party APIs.

Kelly Gebo, Associate Director at thoughtbot

Image of SumIt persona map that identified where to target services

Blog

Co-Founder interview with SumIt

SumIt—a money management platform for freelancers and self-employed folks—undertook research & strategy work with thoughtbot's Ignite team to validate the right target audience and user needs before building a Beta version of their product.

Kelly Gebo, Associate Director at thoughtbot

Blog

Referral Program

Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at tbot.io/referral or you can email referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

thoughtbot

laptop showing an image of a globe and a magnifying glass highlighting the West Asia region of the world

Blog

Learnings from our work in West Asia

Regional and cultural learnings from thoughtbot's work with a West-Asian-based food and beverage company.

Rob Whittaker, Rakesh Arunachalam, Jared Turner, Sami Birnbaum, Kelly Gebo & Ferdia Kenny

Image of a laptop showing Eigen Technologies' web platform

Case Study

Improving Eigen's UI/UX with a design system

Eigen Technologies needed to tackle design debt that had built up during rapid growth to ensure the quality of their product for the global clients who trust them for AI document processing.

thoughtbot

Image of a mobile screen from the Harvard Business Review MVP

Case Study

Future-proofing Harvard Business Review

HBR were looking to evolve their offer so that it remained relevant to their youthful, global, and digital audience while maintaining their reputation for premium quality content and education. thoughtbot's team helped to validate their approach and build a roadmap for full deployment.

thoughtbot

Image of a slide from the Product Design Sprint workshop

Video

Strategies for upfront product validation

Entrepreneurs can get a leg up using our Design Sprint activities to help align on the most important elements of product strategy and quickly translate those into the right product roadmap.

thoughtbot

Image of a speaker on stage at the ProductCon conference

Blog

Our takeaways from ProductCon 2022

Every year, a handful of thoughtbotters attended the virtual ProductCon event and the team does a tremendous job making it effective despite it being 100% remote. We share some of our observations and loves from this February's event.

thoughtbot

Image of Airrosti Remote Recover customized recovery plan mobile screen

Case Study

Delivering an in Clinic Experience via Mobile App

thoughtbot helped Airrosti Remote Recovery bring their in clinic experience to patients' mobile devices without sacrificing connections with their provider, expert help with therapy exercises, and the results they would expect from visiting a physical clinic location.

thoughtbot

Blog

Why Your Prototype Isn't Securing Investment

If you’re serious about raising money, a prototype is an important part of telling your story, but only if your prototype is high quality and based upon validation, feature prioritization, and strong development strategy. Here Associate Director Kelly Gebo shares some best practices we commonly bring to founders to help build a prototype that can truly raise investment.

Kelly Gebo, Associate Director at thoughtbot

Blog

MVP vs PoC: What’s the Right Road?

You have a product idea but aren’t sure how hard it is to build (or if it’s technically possible). thoughtbot shares our perspective when a Proof of Concept might be a good first step before moving forward with your MVP.

Kelly Gebo, Associate Director, thoughtbot

Blog

Advice for starting a health tech startup

Over the course of a year, Michael Sheeley, former founder of RunKeeper and now heading up Nurse-1-1 (a HIPAA-compliant chat platform that connects patients directly with nurses), talked with us on the Giant Robots Smashing into Other Giant Robots podcast. In this post are some of the most compelling learnings from our conversations.

thoughtbot

A developer works on the code quality of an application

Blog

Addressing Technical Debt

Technical debt is something that is present in all organizations. Incurring it can help free up the time of your dev team to work on high-priority features but if left unaddressed in the long run it can destroy you from the inside.

Joël Quenneville, Senior Developer, thoughtbot

Joël and Alejandro work on a product together.

Blog

Technical Considerations to Help Scale Your Product

Finding the right balance between writing quality software and shipping features rapidly can be difficult. Read the best practices for shipping quality software that users will love.

Joël Quenneville, Senior Developer, thoughtbot

Blog

Delivering Features Faster

Get the most velocity from your product team as it transitions from prototyping and validation to growth.

Kane Baccigalupi, Development Director, thoughtbot

Video

The Value of Honesty

Managing Director Josh Clayton explains the value of honesty when working with clients

Josh Clayton, Managing Director at thoughtbot

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Podcast

299: High-Touch (Millie Blackwell)

Millie Blackwell, President & Co-founder of Showcase Workshop, discusses differences in business culture between California and New Zealand, pursuing tablets as a business tool early in the lifespan of the iPad, experimenting with SaaS pricing, and providing value to both enterprise buyers and end-users.

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Case Study

Leveling up people, process, tools, and documentation

With a 10x increase in the campaigns they were running for their users, Adwerx needed a partner to ensure quality was not compromised.

Podcast

248: Crossing the Chasm (Geoffrey A. Moore)

The author of every founder’s required reading “Crossing the Chasm” talks about finding customers who believe what you believe.

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Case Study

Quicky Forecast Case Study

A look at the ruthless feature prioritization for a new CRM tool

Podcast

252: Strategic Foresight (Amy Webb)

Renown author, professor, and founder describes how to spot when the fringe moves to the mainstream.

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Blog

How to Reduce Market Risk by Building your Reputation and Audience Before You Launch

Learn how to build your audience early so you can hit the ground running when your product launches

Chad Pytel, CEO and cofounder, thoughtbot

Chad Pytel explains planning for building a web app

Video

How to plan to build a web app

Build something that you understand so deeply that it comes from the heart.

Chad Pytel, CEO and cofounder, thoughtbot

Boston Product Breakfast group meeting in thoughtbot's Boston studio

Blog

“Build vs Buy” Considerations for New Products

Exploring a new product or venture? Know when to build, buy, and hire.

Josh Clayton, Development Director, thoughtbot

Blog

Eight Essential Steps to Reducing Product Risk

One of the biggest risks when starting a new business is accidentally building something people won’t use. Here are eight essential steps to reduce this risk.

Chad Pytel, CEO and co-founder, thoughtbot

Topics

Validate or Fail Fast

Direct user feedback is your best friend. Learn how to improve your feedback loops.

Learn more about Validation →

Accelerate time to market

Take advantage of opportunities to get your product into new users’ hands quickly.

Learn more about time to market →

Ensure Product Quality

Build for quality and you build for customer (and employee) loyalty.

Learn more about ensuring product quality →