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Back to Why every company now needs to think and operate like a lab team | Josh Woodward (Google Labs, Gemini, AI Studio), with Josh Woodward.

How Do You Spot Product-market Fit Early?

Josh Woodward spots early product-market fit by watching people's eyes, because the early read is way more art than science. Teams already know how to run experiments, make data-driven decisions, and set OKRs, and that process helps. Sometimes a couple of people simply have conviction that the future will look a certain way, and they cannot explain it. That kind of advice is not very useful, and it is still part of the early read.

A more useful check is to get outside the building and show people early prototypes. In the room, the metric is people's eyes, not a usage dashboard. Ask what they think. If their eyes light up and they lean in, the early signal is there. If they look bored, the prototype is not hitting a nerve in their life.

The flip side is to fall in love with the problem, not the product. It takes three, four, or five pivots before a team either has something or decides it did not work. Falling in love with the product solution first leads to a bad time.

Transcript

Why every company now needs to think and operate like a lab team | Josh Woodward (Google Labs, Gemini, AI Studio) ·

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

More from this episode

  1. Where Do Google's Best Ideas Come From?Josh Woodward says the best ideas to come out of labs, and out of Google more broadly, arrive from a variety of places.
  2. What Is Google Labs' Almost Possible Framework?Josh Woodward says Google Labs keeps a list of what is almost possible and watches for the moment an experience crosses into something a team can build.
  3. When Should You Kill a Product Idea?Josh Woodward kills a product idea when the team already knows it is failing, usually before the leader does.
  4. What Skills Are Rising in Value in the AI Era?Josh Woodward looks for mispriced signals in the people around him, past the usual talk of taste, judgment, and vibe coding.
  5. Should Every Employee Become a Builder?Josh Woodward says people are overhyping the idea that everybody is a builder and that the new job is all the same.
  6. Why Does Every Company Need a Frontier Team?Josh Woodward says every company needs a set of people whose job is the frontier.
  7. How Do You Set Up an Internal Labs Team?Josh Woodward gives three tips for anyone setting up an internal labs team.
  8. Will Google Have 10,000 Products or Five?Josh Woodward keeps switching his answer in a long-running debate with Logan Kilpatrick about whether Google will have 10,000 products or five in five years.
  9. Why Does Google Labs Hand Out Miniature Rakes?Josh Woodward gives Google Labs teammates a little miniature rake and a cash reward when they do the grungy work of reclaiming TPUs.

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