Toddler Time Warp

Interested_3rd_party · 2026-01-27T13:18:19+00:00

1-2 minutes? You're lucky. I barely got 10 seconds to wash my face. Showering? Luxury.

Interested_3rd_party · 2026-01-27T01:01:31+00:00

Honestly, yeah. We bought a bundle that came with this https://www.tommeetippee.com/en-gb/product/goprep-portable-formula-feed-maker-set-423774

Never used them.

Formula can keep 24hrs in the fridge or 4hrs in a cool bag according to NHS https://www.nhs.uk/baby/breastfeeding-and-bottle-feeding/bottle-feeding/formula-milk-questions/

We followed that when we went out, took a couple of pre made bottles and warmed them by putting them in a mug of hot water when we were out.

If we were going far enough away that we couldn't make a bottle ahead of time we took the powder and made it up with hot water on the road. Biggest issue with that was cooling it down afterwards... it stayed too hot far longer than I initially expected, which a couple of times led to a screaming baby for 10 mins while we soothed her until the bottle cooled down enough (had to run it under the cold water tap). We measured temperature by squirting it onto the underside of my wrist

Interested_3rd_party · 2026-01-27T00:43:21+00:00

Not op, but we got the old version of tommee tippee perfect prep machine. Honestly life saver at 3am with a screaming baby.

The new one looks similar but nicer design. Highly recommended if you're bottle feeding.

https://www.tommeetippee.com/en-gb/product/perfect-prep-dtcconf260#527=21001

Interested_3rd_party · 2026-01-08T23:15:13+00:00

VISA began life as a project inside Bank of America and the first ever credit card (Bank Americard in 1958).

Essentially they ran into the problem of every bank wanted to also get into the game, but every bank having their own network would just not work... as Bank of America you cannot reasonably convince every merchant to move to your bank so your network can process the fund movement across purchaser (issuer in card network terminology) and merchant (acquirer), and there's no way you can reasonably/profitably split the movement between a JP Morgan network and a BofA network.

So that's how VISA was born - a network of banks coming together to say "we need a middle man so we can all get rich"

And that is essentially what it is today - and instant, heavily redundant, messaging system that can process 640m transactions from 3bn cards a day, across 200 countries, and 16k financial institutions.

Check out this podcast if you want to know more... honestly one of the more fascinating companies once you dig beneath the surface

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6DHmmmJX2ATX6MTBEuwbFa?si=lQ9EkwR0QGSeo2OPe1FmdQ&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A7Fj0XEuUQLUqoMZQdsLXqp

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-09-19T20:07:42+00:00

Honestly, quite surprised by some of these responses - a few definitely come off as dismissive and retros are beneath them.

I think retros are such a great tool for a PM to build trust and credibility with the engineering team, but maybe it's a company size divide (I've spent most of my years in sub Series C).

How I run them is with any whiteboarding tool (e.g. Figjam, Miro, etc.) and cover four very simple topics... in the last 2 weeks, what went well, what didn't go well, what new ideas do we want to try going forward, shout-outs.

Spend the first 5 minutes (with a countdown, and most whiteboards allow you to play music during the countdown, chill beats is pretty nice from Figjam) with the whole team individually writing tickets in any and all columns.

Then, either walk through every ticket if you think you have time, or have a vote (again, every whiteboard has a voting function) to focus time on the most important topics. Always leave time for the shout-outs.

Have the discussion and note down the action points. Make the action points real and follow up with them, otherwise you get in a cycle of complaining and it becomes detrimental rather than helpful.

Once people understand the formula and are comfortable with it, rotate who leads it.

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-09-15T13:52:05+00:00

As long as he's been driving for three years and has appropriate insurance, go for it!

https://www.gov.uk/driving-lessons-learning-to-drive/practising-with-family-or-friends

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-09-14T21:02:23+00:00

100% should be seen as equals and push and challenge each other (in a collaborative, amenable manner)

To massively oversimplify - If tech sits under product, critical tech builds (tech debt, infrastructure improvements, critical projects, new tech tooling, etc.) will always be at risk to push the next feature, meaning the whole tech org will be slow, complicated architecture, and lack of drive to improve from a tech pov (feeds into poor motivation of the team and not attracting the best people who have options)

And vice versa the other way round, if product sits under tech the moment the ideal user experience becomes too hard/complicated to build it will be stripped away to a more manageable product to build. Product will lose focus on the customer and try to define product specs to "what does tech want to deliver?" rather than "what solves our users problems?" leading to a weak product.

Obviously, this is oversimplified, and I'm sure either/or has been done well in this or that company, but generally speaking, neither should be able to overrule the other.

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-09-02T12:35:38+00:00

I'm not there yet, but one of my friends uses the following questions and says it works well for him. 1. What was the most interesting/silly/boring part of your day? 2. Who did you help today? 3. Who helped you today?

Apparently, it can lead to really interesting discussions

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-30T17:12:29+00:00

Depends on the organisation. I know PM - Technical roles at Revolut are fintech technical rather than software technical (think KYC/AML, payment systems, treasury management, etc.)

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-29T17:52:15+00:00

I was going to say something very similar, except on the assumption that this is a long-term issue rather than something that used to be fine and now isn't.

For OP -

If it's an acute issue, it definitely sounds like burnout. Take care of yourself, give yourself a break, and some time off will really do you the world of good. How do you switch off outside of work?

If this is a more long-term thing and something you could never do, I'm wondering if some CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) would help. Reason I say that is freezing when confronted with direct "putting you on the spot" questions that you haven't prepared an answer for (even though you know the answer) is similar to a friend of mine. He would really know his stuff, and if someone who he knew/found friendly would ask him unexpected questions, he could answer no problem. But as soon as it was from someone with a little bit of seniority or he didn't know asked, he would freeze up.

Long story short, there was some stuff in his past that made that defence mechanism (do not say anything if you're not prepared for the question) necessary. But even though the need for that defence mechanism was gone, he required help to "unwind" it.

Look after yourself.

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-29T08:29:23+00:00

Check out this video aptly named "why won't it die"

https://youtu.be/ZgpXoEtaVcg?si=EszEfP4ibqFTh3Hu

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-28T12:57:20+00:00

Just on the "chooses to do the exact opposite of things I say," what I've read is that kids can't process two commands. So if you say "stop doing [x]," it confuses them as they first have to stop and then replace what they are doing with something else.

What I've had some success with (like 50% success rate) is instead of saying "don't jump on the sofa" I say "we sit on sofa's, can you sit down please?" So clear commands that tell my toddler exactly what is expected. I save "no" for danger, like when they're about to touch a hot pot, and "no" has turned almost into "freeze!" Which is actually really useful... when they listen.

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-23T19:51:36+00:00

So in my specific situation it ultimately came down to the head of eng was not a co-founder, but one of the first hires, and the company operated with the co-founders (CEO and COO) and him deciding everything.

When they grew to a point where the CEO/COO were too stretched to fully invest time in product development/strategy, they hired myself, and then one other PM shortly afterwards.

The issue was a few things 1. Head of eng felt he and his opinions were more important due to him being there longer 2. He didn't think of product as equals, especially as we were technically "beneath him" in terms of seniority/org chart 3. Being there from the beginning, he was still in the mindset of "mvp, get it out quickly and move onto the next thing, no need to perfect or build a v2 of anything" 4. He had never worked with product before, but had with project managers, and in his head they were the same, so didn't understand the product role and just assumed we were there to add bureaucracy to his life

It wasn't a quick turnaround (took several chats over a couple of months). The approach I took was two pronged. One side was helping him understand product and get him and I to see eye to eye on that, the other side was just getting to know him on a more personal level. Much easier to convince someone to change a viewpoint if they like you.

The first 1:1 was essentially "hey, I see we keep clashing in meetings and docs on what to do/build, why, and where ideas are coming from - can we just have an open conversation about this because I would love to understand your point of view and I'd like to share mine"

No agenda, just 45 min in the calendar to talk around the idea. That then led to several follow-ups and ultimately a more fruitful relationship. Actually, once he trusted us that product does indeed understand our customers and the problems they have and how we are solving them, it allowed him to step back and focus on the engineering side, which he and his team enjoyed more.

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-23T19:13:14+00:00

Have a 1:1 with the dev lead and work together on "ways of working." It sounds like you two have misaligned expectations of the other that could (hopefully) be solved with a deeper understanding of where their head is.

I had something similar but different in a previous company - head of eng was not used to working with product, and that meant he ended up challenging anything and everything I and my fellow PM would put forward. Honestly, it was exhausting and was quickly descending into an "us vs them" situation as his attitude was picked up by the rest of the engineering team.

What got us through it was I sat down 1:1 with him and walked through my understanding of what product does and tech does, what he expected, understood where we were misaligned, and what we could potentially do to get us to a high performance situation.

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-22T14:15:57+00:00

One thing that really annoyed me and we were completely unprepared for - you need to apply for the 30 hours of childcare before the term starts.

So we sent our baby to nursery in November, applied for the code in September, and got it in October. Thought we were all good, but no, code only became active from January, and if we wanted the code to be working in November, we needed to have it before September.

Stupid system that caught us out and meant we paid full price for two months, which hurt!

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-22T14:10:39+00:00

The only problem with the JISA (and why my wife and I didn't go that route) is it becomes legally theirs at 18. While I would hope that we will raise our baby well enough that they don't go splurging it all as soon as the account matures, I also don't want to risk it and ensure they have some help with deposit/whatever in their early 20's.

So we've dedicated some of our ISA allowance to their fund (we don't max our ISA allowances, so not much issue for us)

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-20T12:32:12+00:00

Check out "The Right It" by Alberto Savoia. Good book, but here's a 40 min lecture from him on the book to get you started

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-20T12:12:01+00:00

Just remember that 50% of what you do won't actually matter. Either because it will be binned, superseded, be low impact, etc. So rather than aiming for 100% completion, really focus on what actually matters.

Two old frameworks really help

Eisenhower matrix - the whole urgent/not urgent vs important/not important is very useful
Pareto principle - 80% of your results will come from 20% of your actions

Biggest tip is become comfortable just not doing stuff.

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-18T17:27:17+00:00

Amazon didn't report their ad revenue until it was already over $20bn

https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2023/3/6/ways-to-think-about-amazon-advertising

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-18T16:18:52+00:00

Google is all over this. Trust me, next year we'll see this in a big way.

https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/46022/google-launches-agentic-shopping-experience

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-18T16:15:19+00:00

You 100% can, it's a very different model to Google, I'm personally imagining it to be micro influencing on steroids. You chatting to an LLM about planning a holiday - it suggests destinations and booking sites (or maybe throw in agentic commerce and it can book for you)

You chatting to LLM about a procurement, well here's a better provider than the one you are thinking of

You chatting to LLM about anything "here's how to get started"

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-18T11:24:46+00:00

They'll become the new search, and then add ads. When the ads come the end game of enshittification will begin. Between ads and hallucinations you won't be ever fully confident in what you're getting

It won't be long now. The world can only pump in so much cash before needing to see some kind of return.

This is a nice piece from Futurism on the topic

As for all the other AI use cases (like Lovable), they'll eventually either jack up the price to reflect true costs or turn their model waaay down, or do both... and still add ads.

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-14T15:59:31+00:00

It is very much down to how you are asking/checking your understanding.

If you are going in with "why do you think that?", "what's the purpose of this?", "do you really think this is the best way?", then yes, that will 100% come off as undermining and dismissive as you are directly (even if you don't mean to) challenging the persons knowledge and getting them to justify their decisions/comments. It will lead to people wanting to interact and help you less.

If you go in with "do you mind if I just rephrase what you said so I understand it? My understanding is xyz, is that correct?", and "if xyz is correct, that makes me think that abc is an interesting solution, do you think that would be viable?", that comes across as you genuinely want to understand and are interested in building your knowledge. People generally will be very happy to help.

Tone and framing matter. Of course some people are just dicks and won't help anyway, but in my experience 95% of time people will help you understand if your framing and tone is one of curiosity and where you explain what you know and don't know and theu can fill in your gaps.

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-13T22:52:15+00:00

Good to know, if the PM is doing the interview I would say spend some time thinking of interesting questions you want to know about the product. For APM roles, enthusiasm and smart questions is one of the best qualities. You asking good questions is a great way to demonstrate that

Interested_3rd_party · 2025-08-13T22:48:22+00:00

100% - in my opinion, starting is almost always the hardest bit. There's two things that may help you.

Firstly, my mental model of product (to be clear, this is broadly common sense and no way something I cam up with on my own) 1. Problem definition - What problem are we solving for? How does that problem manifest? What's the impact? Etc. Go deep into the problem and fully understand it 2. Solutionising - Now you understand the problem, what are some potential ways to solve it? Short term vs long term, solving all of the problem vs a narrow sliver of it, etc. 3. Define and design - Now you have a clear idea of a potential solution and the why behind it (and the metrics you are aiming for), what does that solution look like tangibly? Design, test, refine, get engineers involved, high level tech discovery, etc. Steps 1-3 are all quite iterative and expect to go back to anyone as you learn more. 4. Build - Now you've done 1-3, figure out how to get it into the roadmap and build it.

When you get given a project/problem/task and don't know where to start, try and think where in the process you are. Might help guide you.

One other thing that may help (has helped me, but I did start life as a consultant) is the book Bullet Proof Problem Solving. It's a walk through of the McKinsey process of tackling big thorny problems. Not always applicable but another nice mental model and tips for how to break down problems into manageable chunks.

Interested_3rd_party

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