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The Top 25 People To Follow On Medium To Level-Up Your Product Knowledge

A few people have asked me recently how to cast a wider net on their product knowledge, or simply how to get started with it.

It can be daunting when there are so many sources and people purporting to be ‘experts’ (glances awkwardly at the mirror), so I thought I’d start with the source I use the most often — Medium.

At $5 a month for unlimited content, it’s an absolute steal as a tool to expand your product knowledge. If you read 2 posts to start every workday, that’s 40 posts a month — 12.5 cents (10 pence) per article. $5 / 40 = 12.5 cents , that’s quick maths.

If you’re looking to improve your product management knowledge and progress your career in the industry, then keep reading!

Here’s an outline of 25 product people you should follow on Medium to start consuming more relevant and useful product content.

I’ve grouped them into 5 broad categories, but as is often the caveat, they’re not mutually exclusive.

Big dogs

These are the super-credible, hyper-experienced guys that have been there, done that and got all the t-shirts.

Roman Pichler

Roman has his own website which is well known within the product and agile development communities, but he still has a decent amount of content on Medium.

On face value, many of his posts seem pretty similar to the other people that I’ll suggest that you follow. The main difference is that Roman is considered a thought-leader and an expert in the field, and this gives his views added credibility.

Roman Pichler – MediumRead writing from Roman Pichler on Medium. Product management expert. Author of “How to Lead in Product Management”…medium.com

Rich Mironov

Rich’s content is primarily focussed on product leadership and how to set up your teams to be successful. With 3.8k followers, he has almost as many followers as Roman Pichler.

Rich Mironov — MediumRead writing from Rich Mironov on Medium. Tech start-up veteran, smokejumper CPO/product management VP, writer, coach…medium.com

Nir Eyal

Author of the best-seller ‘Hooked’, Nir is a don when it comes to behavioural psychology and how it applies to product development. Just check out some interviews with him — the man knows his stuff. He has his own website (www.nirandfar.com) so Medium isn’t his main, er, medium, but he posts a helpful list of weekly ‘must-reads’.

And if you haven’t already, buy his book.

Nir Eyal – MediumRead writing from Nir Eyal on Medium. Want to overcome distraction? Get my free 80-page guide to becoming…medium.com

Noah Weiss

Noah hasn’t posted on Medium for almost 2 years, but it’s well worth checking out the content he has already produced as it’s still highly relevant today.

Noah Weiss – MediumRead writing from Noah Weiss on Medium. Senior Director of Product, Expansion @SlackHQ. Started Search + ML team…medium.com

For regular, relevant product content

The name of this category is underselling those in it a bit. It’s not a catch-all, it’s more that these lot post high-quality content on a wide range of topics. Don’t believe me? Check them out for yourself!

Jens-Fabian Goetzmann

Jens-Fabian is a top writer in the ‘leadership’ and ‘Startup’ categories for good reason. He posts regular content that goes into much greater depth on each topic than most of his contemporaries. That does mean that his articles tend to be on the long side (many are over a 10-minute read) so make sure you’ve got a cup of coffee or a snack if you’re going to dig into one of his posts, but he’s well worth a follow.

Jens-Fabian Goetzmann — MediumRead writing from Jens-Fabian Goetzmann on Medium. Head of Product @ 8fit. Formerly @ Yammer, BCG. Every day…medium.com

Anthony Murphy

I can’t quite get my head around the pace with which Anthony produces content — he’s rapid. He clearly does a lot of research to complement his own experiences, and this shows in his writing. High quality and high quantity, a rare thing.

Anthony Murphy — MediumRead writing from Anthony Murphy on Medium. Product person, agile nerd and cat herder ?. Every day, Anthony Murphy and…medium.com

Scott Middleton

Bite-sized, easy to digest but not lacking depth is how I’d describe Scott’s writing. He’s the CEO of Australia’s fastest growing Product Development firm, so he knows what he’s talking about!

Scott Middleton — MediumRead writing from Scott Middleton on Medium. CEO & Founder, terem.com.au. Australia’s fastest-growing product…medium.com

Product Dave ?

I don’t just follow Dave just for his simple but genius handle, but because of his consistently interesting content. He’s the Ronseal of Medium bloggers.

Product Dave ? — MediumRead writing from Product Dave ? on Medium. “? I help next-gen PM’s create world-class products” | Lead PM Instructor…medium.com

Carlos G de Villaumbrosia

Probably the most regular poster of the lot, Carlos is the CEO of Product School and editor of their publication on Medium. Many of his posts are write-ups of interviews or AMA sessions with those in the product community, so it’s worth following to digest these if you don’t attend to the sessions.

Carlos G de Villaumbrosia — MediumRead writing from Carlos G de Villaumbrosia on Medium. CEO at Product School — Global leader in product management…medium.com

Rob Calvert

Rob has experience within product, engineering and design and this shows in the roundedness of his writing. A great all-rounder to follow.

Rob Calvert — MediumRead writing from Rob Calvert on Medium. Product specialist. Also founder, advisor, with some engineering & design…medium.com

Shaping your career

Because we all need help on the way up.

Lilly M. Dobreva

Lilly’s content is particularly useful if you’re relatively new to product, as it will help you to get started, shape your role and grow your career.

Lilly M. Dobreva – MediumRead writing from Lilly M. Dobreva on Medium. A curious product manager. In love with reading and new experiences…medium.com

Jackie Bavaro

Jackie co-authored ‘cracking the PM interview’ and much of her content on Medium is around this theme. She also looks at hiring from the side of a product team leader, so it’s useful if you’re looking for a move yourself or trying to build out your team. Bravo Bavaro, you might say.

Jackie Bavaro — MediumRead writing from Jackie Bavaro on Medium. Co-Author of Cracking the PM Interview, the best selling book on product…medium.com

Tom Comerford

Tom writes predominantly about two things — developing yourself as a product manager, and Milan. A Product Milan-ager, if you will.

Tom Comerford — MediumRead writing from Tom Comerford on Medium. Experienced #product leader at Walmart eCommerce with an MBA from @NYUStern…medium.com

Product leadership

Transitioning from a product manager to a product leader takes some doing, and these people can help.

Noa Ganot

As an executive product coach, Noa’s content is aimed at those looking to become a leader in the field of product management. Helpful, given that no amount of Scrum training will prepare you for leading teams and creating strategies.

Noa Ganot – MediumRead writing from Noa Ganot on Medium. Helping product executives and their companies grow. Formerly VP Product…medium.com

Curtis Savage

Curtis’s posts focus on the challenges product leaders will face and how you can overcome them. If you don’t think that sounds really useful, I don’t know what to tell you.

Curtis Savage – MediumRead writing from Curtis Savage on Medium. Product Leader based in Toronto | I love building products that people use |…medium.com

Shari Harrison

Shari is another that has her own website, which is arguably her main focus but still has a lot of useful and engaging content on Medium. In fact, Shari was the first author I ever reached out to on the platform to praise their work! That was a real milestone for Shari too, I’m sure.

Shari Harrison – MediumRead writing from Sari Harrison on Medium. Product management leader | Innovation coach | Student | Teacher | Mentor |…medium.com

Alex Mitchell

Following Alex will definitely expand your product vision. If you were a horse, I’d liken his content to removing your [product knowledge]blinkers. You’re probably not a horse though, so I’ll move on (if you do happen to be a horse, and you’re reading this, DM me, I have a business proposal for you).

Alex Mitchell – MediumRead writing from Alex Mitchell on Medium. CPO @ICXMedia | 4x Product Leader/Founder | Investor | Blog…medium.com

Joe Van Os

Measured completely arbitrarily by the metric of ‘my perception’, Joe is one of my favourite writers-per-post in terms of the quality of the content. He doesn’t post huge amounts, but what he does post is always thought-provoking.

Joe Van Os – MediumRead writing from Joe Van Os on Medium. On the road of discovering what it means to be a Product Manager, passing on…medium.com

Dave Bailey

Dave is all about coaching leaders to become better. He posts around once a week but as it’s highly targeted on leadership, team management and career development, he sits best in this category. The only downside is that his Medium tag is ‘Dave Superman’. I’m more a fan of 

Captain Dave.Dave Bailey – MediumRead writing from Dave Bailey on Medium. I help venture-backed founders become great CEOs-serial founder, coach…medium.com

Maarten Dalmijn

Maarten loves agile, but hates all the misconceptions around it, particularly with Scrum. He’s a great person to follow to increase your knowledge of agile delivery methodologies or challenge your existing views on it.

Maarten Dalmijn – MediumRead writing from Maarten Dalmijn on Medium. Product Owner and Agile enthusiast…medium.com

Monica Viggars

Monica’s content is a mix between things that will help you as a product manager and things that will help you as a product leader. Both, I find, are incredibly useful. In her own words, she writes about the ‘human side of product management’. Frankly it was news to me that product manager’s are real people…

Monica Viggars – MediumRead writing from Monica Viggars on Medium. Product Practice Coach. Director @ Rather Good Consultancy: I help make…medium.com

To become more user-centric

As product sits at the intersection of the user, the business and technology, it’s going to help you a hell of a lot to beef up your UX knowledge.

Jared M. Spool

Jared has 50k followers on Medium, making him the most popular on this list. In fact, he probably has more followers than the rest combined (but I haven’t checked…). The only reason he’s not in the ‘Big Dogs’ section is that his focus is design and not product, but following him is a no-brainer, I’ve referenced his content a lot over the past few years.

Jared M. Spool — MediumRead writing from Jared M. Spool on Medium. Maker of Awesomeness at @CenterCentre/@UIE. Helping designers everywhere…medium.com

Jennifer Clinehens

If Jared is the first person you should follow in this category, Jennifer is a close second. Focussing more on CX and behavioural science than design, her content is brilliant.

Jennifer Clinehens – MediumRead writing from Jennifer Clinehens on Medium. Head of CX, behavior change strategist. Use behavioral science and…medium.com

András Juhász

Although András is a product manager, he has an eye for user experience and has posted multiple times about suggested UX improvements. He’s a good person to follow to better understand that link between product and design, and getting started with both.

András Juhász – MediumRead writing from András Juhász on Medium. Product Manager at Emarsys – passionate about great user experiences…medium.com

Steve Bromley

Steve is a user researcher whose work I first became aware of when I co-interviewed him as part of the P24 event in March 2020. I was fascinated by his knowledge and deep understanding of human psychology and user behaviour. The downside is, he’s only posted 3 articles to date. Hey Steve, give us more content!

Steve Bromley — MediumRead writing from Steve Bromley on Medium. User researcher, based in London and with experience in websites, video…medium.com

Concluding thoughts

So there you have it, 25 big-hitters to follow to get relevant, regular, riveting content related to product management.

Here’s how to go about it if you’re totally new to Medium:

  1. Sign up to Medium for $5 a month
  2. Follow the publications and people I’ve listed above
  3. Read a couple of articles from your ‘daily read’ which you will receive via an app push notification and email
  4. Save any other articles you like the look of (they’re saved on a reading list that you can access at any time)
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 and your recommendations will get smarter and more tailored to your interests

Let me know how you get on, and anyone else you think should be added to the list.

Happy Medium-ing.

This article was originally posted on Chris’s blog @ https://chrismiles.co/top-25-product-people-to-follow-on-medium/