Igor

the best startup founders in 2026 won't be the best coders they'll be the best Product Managers here's the full playbook: 1. pick a problem you personally have. you need to understand your user better than anyone else, and the easiest way to do that is to be your own user 2. spin up a landing page with AI fast. make it about the pain and the fix, no fluff. and make signup 2 clicks max, remove every possible friction 3. learn to write specs, describe features and explain edge cases. that's all you really need now 4. let AI build the first version. your job is to direct, not develop 5. use whatever stack you're most comfortable with. just ship. don't overthink the tech decision - that's not your job anymore 6. host on the simplest platform possible - Vercel, Railway, whatever - don't touch servers 7. test thoroughly - especially edge cases. you're a QA now 8. charge from day 0. free users give you nothing but false hope 9. list your product on every directory you can find. it compounds your SEO and builds DR over time 10. start building in public. share the micro wins, the losses, everything. invite people to try it through DMs. I did this for all my products 11. do customer support yourself, always. redirect questions to your socials, never automate this. every support request is a product insight - that's why you do it yourself, always (I still do this for all 5 of my products) 12. automate everything else you do more than twice 13. improve one thing in your product every single day once users start coming in. watch your competitors' G2 and Trustpilot reviews closely for ideas 14. a PM's most important skill is deciding what NOT to build. for every feature request you get, say no to 9 of them - build less, but build it right 15. every week, build one free tool targeting a keyword that benefits you. it compounds over time 16. work your SEO early. build your affiliate setup early. only run paid acquisition after you're sure about PMF every day your only 2 priorities are: - get more users - and keep the ones you have that's it. everything else is noise