Tess Rosania @ptr Twitter profile

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Tess Rosania

3 months

It has been a busy few months! Somehow, I find myself with one more bit of news: I am transgender, and I'm in the middle of a gender transition. 🏳️‍⚧️ I am changing my name to Tess (she/her). I am out at home and at work and now you know, too. That's the gist. If the story…

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

4 years

Amazon order confirmations and shipment notifications no longer include any item details. I could not for the life of me figure out why they would do this. They're not scored on MAUs, they don't need me to click through. Then I realized: is it so Google can't see my order data?

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

9 years

. @tjack explains how to make lemonade at Tea Time. http://t.co/kW2or8wxPZ

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

10 months

You can be the smartest person in the room, and if you're a subpar listener you will be a terrible PM. Conversely, if you're amazing at listening – and *remembering* – you're likely to have a strong product career. Here's why, and what to do. First, a story from Slack's early…

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

11 months

@paulg You will get a lot of pushback on this with claims about labor dynamics and worker preferences, but crucially, many of the highest performers *want* to spend time in close proximity to each other, so returning to an office might be a net win on talent quality.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

Here's some bad advice for new PMs: "The job of the PM is not to be liked." It's usually followed by, "the job of the PM is to ensure the goals of the business are achieved." If you're just starting out, this is one of the worst things you could possibly internalize.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

4 years

We are pawns in the data wars.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

4 years

Here's something: I'm starting a company with @gnezelocin and @wwayneee . ✨ We're Balsa, and we're building tools for builders.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

This is really incredible. ML is forming an impenetrable moat around many Google properties, and Maps is perhaps the most visible example. If you're hoping Apple Maps will be competitive someday, don't hold your breath.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

11 months

We designed, built, and shipped Slack's Do Not Disturb feature in four weeks, between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2015. (We wanted it out for the holidays so folks could snooze notifications during their time off.) Here's how we pulled it off: Know what you want to achieve. We…

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

5 years

Your team is not an army. Soldiers follow orders under fear of death and threat of court martial. Your team follows vision, curiosity, and care for them as individuals. Loyalty is not compulsory.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

4 years

Lots of shit talked about eng estimates, but can we talk about recipe prep and cooking time estimates?

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

2 years

My absolute favorite SaaS pricing and packaging principle is, "Sell order, give away chaos." Easy to remember, super effective. It sounds cynical but I promise it isn't! 👇🏼

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

11 months

How to prioritize a product backlog, in 9 easy steps. 🪄 Many PMs struggle with this. You don't have to. If you have a list of ideas already, you can do it in under an hour. 1. Create a blank spreadsheet (e.g. ) 2. Add column headers: "Project", "Reach",…

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

11 months

When I tell people we didn't use an issue tracker at Slack, I typically get one of two reactions, either "oh thank god" or "how tf did you stay organized?" Here's the thing: we were incredibly organized. Here was our system: Use a document (and checklists) to track your work.…

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

7 years

Lily Grace Rosania joined the family and the world today! 7 lbs 3 oz. Mom and baby are healthy and doing great. 💞

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

2 years

Your job as a PM is not to be the voice of the customer. Here's what PMs are *really* scored on: clear communication, organization ability, critical thinking, responsiveness.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

11 months

After ten years of building SeRiOuS software (Twitter, Slack, etc.), my theory for keeping track of work is: checkboxes are enough. We built all of Slack this way. If you are writing more than a bullet of text for most tasks you are slowing your team down.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 months

Ahem. It's been awhile since I've posted, what's up everyone? How's 2024 treating you? It's been a wild ride for me so far, and I have some news: Airtable acquired Balsa 🎉 and we are shutting the product down 😢. I have a lot to say about this! If you're curious, read on... 👇🏼…

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

Your job as a PM is not to do what's right at the expense of your relationship with your team. It's to eliminate the dichotomy between being liked and doing what's right.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

9 years

It's time for a new challenge, and I am thrilled to be joining @stewart , @merci and the product team at @SlackHQ .

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

7 years

Something new: I'm joining a few operators to give 🕰 + 💸 to founders at the earliest stage. If you're working on something new, let's talk!

First Round

@firstround

7 years

Introducing the Product Co-op: A team of 6 incredible product leaders investing in & advising founders!

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

5 years

Lots of chatter about Lyft closing out the week down ~20% from IPO. It's a common story: Facebook, Square, and many others traded significantly below IPO in their first year. Hopefully things recover, as they often do. But the IPO "pop" can permanently harm employees.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

As a PM, you achieve practically nothing independently. Your success is dictated by the performance of your team. That means your team needs to trust and respect you. They need to want to rally with you around a plan. And we support people we like. It's human nature.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

1 year

Prediction: the bear market will reopen the "should PMs be technical?" debate.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

10 months

Simpler isn't always better: a cautionary tale from my time at Twitter. There are a bunch of practical product design takeaways from this debacle which I've included below. First, the story: On Thursday, December 12, 2013, Twitter rolled out a change to the Block feature, that…

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

5 years

Feature DAU rule of thumb for PMs: * Not visible (long press, keyboard shortcut, pref, etc): 0.5% * Visible, ancillary (top level UI, advanced feature, strategy tax button, etc.): 5% * Visible, critical workflow (product is unusable w/o it): 50%

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

8 years

Biggest perk of working at @SlackHQ by far.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

11 months

When it comes to PM, stored knowledge deteriorates so rapidly that you should try to create as little of it as possible. You are probably writing too much down, at the cost of more important things like talking to customers, iterating on designs, deep diving into analytics, etc…

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

10 months

Feeling anxious as a PM is normal. We get paid to worry. One of the best ways to cope is to spend a little time each day anchoring yourself, your roadmap, and your strategy. Here are 10 concrete ways to "touch grass": 1. Log into @Zendesk and read 20 customer tickets 2. Read 20…

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

In my experience, closing that gap is almost always about listening, and people feeling heard. If people feel like they can productively disagree with you and you'll truly listen (and maybe even be persuaded once in awhile!), they are *much* more likely to trust your leadership.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

Pandemic effect we're seeing: loyalty to employer is at a low; loyalty to immediate team is at a high. Great managers (and founders/execs) will lean into this.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

11 months

@paulg Optimizing for labor market size is for suckers. I don’t want to work with a big team, I want to work with a talented (and dedicated) one.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

In my experience, great listeners actually *avoid* operating by consensus. When your teammates feel heard, they trust that you've weighed their input into your decision, whether they agree with it or not. And when people value our opinions, we like them more. It's human!

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

1 year

Life with a 2yo. This took me 20m

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

7 years

I talked with First Round about making difficult product decisions. Hope it's helpful to a few PMs or founders out there!

First Round

@firstround

7 years

Tactics for Making Decisions without Doubt — from @SlackHQ & @Twitter Product Leader @ptr (on @firstround Review)

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

Trump said the exact words "we will never concede" to a roaring crowd, in Washington, *this morning*. This is not a fringe group operating independently. They are loyal followers of a would-be dictator.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

Listening is a tough skill. Making people feel heard even when you need to decide against their opinion is even harder. But it forges you as a leader people trust. And they might even like you for it. Imagine that! ✌🏼

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

7 years

I am so thrilled to finally share Threads. This one took a lot of careful thought and iteration to get right. Let me know what you think! ✌🏼

Slack

@SlackHQ

7 years

Why the excitement about today? Glad you asked. Today’s the day we’re launching Threads. Mhm. Threads.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

11 months

The biggest gift great PMs bring to organizations is caring about the success of the business and making that the center of all their efforts. If your team already has someone doing exactly that, great. If they spend their entire day sweating it, you are all set. If you have a…

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

8 years

First thought on seeing my @slackhq 1-year balloon: "it's been twelve months?!" Time flies when you're having fun. Here's to many more! 🎈🚀

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

8 years

This whole thing has me in a bit of a mood, so let me drop some math on you all. #RIPTwitter

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

4 years

PMs, designers, founders: you cannot possibly overstate how little your target audience cares about your company or product. It's not even that they actively don't care; you just don't enter their mind. Like a ghost from another astral plane, you just pass through them.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

5 years

So proud of the team that worked on this. If you're not using shared channels (or not using Slack! 🤯) – you owe it to yourself to check this out. They're better than email for getting work done. I promise!

Slack

@SlackHQ

5 years

Let’s see a show of 🙌 if you work with vendors, partners or customers. Today we’re launching shared channels for all paid teams. Get ready for a better way to work with people outside your company.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

7 years

Flexible tools + open APIs = 🔥🔥🔥

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

7 years

Is it too early to start drinking? Asking for a friend of education, health, science, the planet, nuclear disarmament, and/or human rights.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

8 years

In a purely chronological feed, tweet quality is distributed *randomly*. (Yes, recency plays a factor: more to come on that later.)

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

8 years

Twitter has secretly been ranking your timeline by recency since 2006.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

7 years

I'm giving a talk! Come hear me rant about building great products in the chaotic world of software. 🔨💦 😰🚀😃

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

8 years

To hallucinate a terrible future, to demonize its creators, to cling to our prejudices: that is to be truly human. #RIPTwitter

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

2 years

🚀🚀🚀If you're on JIRA, Balsa Build is ready for download! Balsa Build is the fastest, cleanest, most comprehensive desk reference for builders -- a tool we've always wanted. It links JIRA and GitHub today. More integrations soon! Give it a try + let me know what you think. 🙏🏼🙌🏼

Balsa

@balsa

2 years

🎺Do you use JIRA? If so, we have big news! Starting today, Balsa Build is available for download. Balsa Build is the best desk reference for builders, pulling all your work from JIRA and GitHub together in one place. Experience it for yourself!

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

10 years

Badgeless police arresting the press, here in good ol' USA. http://t.co/O6BfQ6rgkx http://t.co/akTxAFXYPW

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

11 months

@swyx To be fair to the model, specifying garlic in milligrams or cups is evil, maybe it is trying to tell you something

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

In 10 years, we'll look back on the debate about whether to allow remote work like we look back on employee lunch breaks and paid time off. Which is to say, it will seem ludicrous to imagine it was ever a decision leaders thought merited debate at all.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

8 years

How can you judge something when you don't even know what it is?

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

Make time for your team, or you won't have one.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

The greatest privilege you can earn as a leader is to be your whole self – honest, vulnerable, flawed – and have people follow you anyway.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

1 year

Every company gets slower at shipping as it grows. It's gravity. As your company gains mass, you have to fight it harder and harder until eventually it crushes you. The winning strategy is to stay as small as possible at every stage.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

An apprentice consults the master VC. "What is the purpose of wealth creation, if I am not to enjoy life?" asks the naïve founder. "I am traveling Patagonia this month," responds the wise VC. "Let us discuss upon my return."

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

🎈 I'm hiring! I am looking for a product leader to chart the future of how teams work across organizational boundaries, and shape the growing network of people using Slack around the world. Is that you? (Or someone you know?) Let's talk! ☕️

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

Mike. 😭

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

We don't hire many PMs. This is your chance to join a talented team working on the earliest and most formative part of the customer lifecycle! 🐣🌱📈

Fareed Mosavat

@far33d

6 years

Come work with me on Slack's onboarding and new user experience. I promise rewarding work, talented and creative teammates, and an opportunity to do both deep product work and data-driven experimentation.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

4 years

We need your support! Come with us on this journey. You'll be in good company. Visit us at . Sign up to stay in touch or join our closed alpha. Follow us at @GoBalsa . Say hi at hello @balsa .com. We want to hear from you. It's time to sharpen our tools!

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

Where PMs can get confused is on the difference between listening and consensus-driven decision-making. The advice to not optimize for likability is typically meant to steer you away from operating by consensus. But listening to your teammates doesn't mean doing what they say.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

Shipping something today! After more than a decade doing this, I still get giddy on launch days. 😅🥳🚀

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

The end of an era! (It's moving day.)

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

7 years

It’s not every day you get to feed your team this much Pizza Hut *and* trigger intense @wwayneee FOMO simultaneously. Sorry Wayne! 😂💞🍕🍕🍕

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

After a year of quiet work—and many people asking, "Balsa seems neat, but what do you actually do?"—we're launching our first product, Balsa Build, to early access. Check it out at ! It's already helping us ship faster -- maybe it can accelerate you too. 🚀

Balsa • Docs for building software

Balsa is a new type of document for software teams to organize ideas, track projects, and collaborate with each other. Give it a try and see how it can simplify your workflow!

www.balsa.com

Balsa

@balsa

3 years

Balsa Build lets you see and work across your existing tools like Jira and GitHub in one place. It's now in early access, and you can learn all about it on our new ✨ website 💙: 🛠🚀

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

4 years

Sometimes when people say they want to be included in decisions what they're really saying is they want better leadership.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

4 years

This little popup has saved me at least five times today. Thanks @rahulvohra and the @Superhuman team. The details make the difference! 🎁

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

Six months old today. Recruiting is so competitive these days, I’m starting the @GoBalsa swag game now so he thinks of us for his first gig.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

@HamasakiLaw What are you doing about the nine people shot in your jurisdiction in the last 24h?

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

Hard-earned lesson in product management: Just because you want something done sooner doesn't mean it can be done in less time.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

First dose done! 💉

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

4 years

We're grateful to not be doing this alone. We're joined by many investors who are builders themselves: @andrewchen and @davidu from @a16z , @mallun and @LeylaSeka from @OperatorCollect , @aunder , @stewart , @drewhouston , @howietl , @jasoncwarner , @rands , @scottbelsky and many others.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

9 years

Should @twitter build polls?

Yes

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OMG A POLL

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

Us product folks love building fancy tools, but more often, it's the simple things, done well, that customers really love. Congrats to @ayeshabose_ and the rest of the team who worked hard on this little big feature. 🎁😺

Slack

@SlackHQ

6 years

Starting today, you can upload files and images to a thread. No, really — we’re not stringing you along. More about this and other threads improvements:

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

9 years

It has been an incredible (life-changing!) 3+ years, but this was my last week at @Twitter .

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

8 years

Proud to launch the first feature I worked on @SlackHQ ! 🎉 (Now, back to work.)

Slack

@SlackHQ

8 years

The long-awaited, oft-requested Do Not Disturb mode is finally here! 💤 🔕 🚪 🔔 🎉 😂

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

4 years

The fact that eating a burrito takes 5 minutes and salad takes an hour is one of the great injustices of the universe. I only eat carbs to save time, I swear!

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

The biggest mistake you can make with data is to stop talking to customers.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

10 years

My Twitter Inc. journey began two years ago today. Thanks @othman @akashgarg @pkwire @krupenin @amar @VL @cgst @mirceap for believing in me!

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

7 years

Worth the entire trip to NY in its own right.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

10 years

I'm hiring PMs for two huge roles – come work with me!

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

Data tells you what is; stories tell you what can be.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

8 years

You won't even notice. You won't! You think you will, but you won't.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

3 years

🚨 Survey Alert! 🚨 Are you a builder? Whether you're an engineer, PM, designer, researcher, or manager, we need your help! We're conducting a study on the builder experience. Take the survey: For more on why, and what we hope to learn, see below 👇🏼

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

2 years

Happy New Year! May your features ship on time and your bug burndowns progress at your modeled story point velocity.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

7 years

You will forget that you cared about the 140 character limit. You will. I promise.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

It's been a fun year! And if you are just getting started with a new startup idea (or know someone who is) get in touch! 💸📈🚀

First Round

@firstround

6 years

The Product Co-op has been heads down, advising and investing in founders at the earliest stage. Today, @danshipper , @Max , @nikitadyer , @oteich , @ptr , and @AlexanderPease are thrilled to announce the 11 startups they've invested in. Read more here:

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

7 years

Particularly impressive set of parking infractions. 10/10

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

8 years

If you miss any tweets, *any at all*, there will be just as much good stuff in there as there is in what you actually see.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

1 year

@semil @friedberg @theallinpod Worst of all, for me, is it's clouded a generation's judgment about what they're truly great at. When you build on Google-scale distribution, you can ship inferior products with lackadaisical GTM motion and still realize millions in revenue growth.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

6 years

Leadership spoiler: that "secret" meeting is just a group of smart, flawed, hardworking people trying their hardest to solve an impossible problem with brutal tradeoffs.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

5 years

One of my favorite things leading up to a big launch: digging up all sorts of fun history to remind the team of humble beginnings. 🧨

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

8 years

You don't read every tweet. You just don't.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

5 years

Proud to be married to a brilliant partner who is solving real health issues for families. (And kids!)

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

2 years

If you've made a plan and are grappling with whether to stick to it or change course, here are some tools and tricks that worked for me on many teams across Twitter and Slack:

Tess Rosania

@ptr

2 years

The hardest part of prioritization is sticking with it -- or knowing when not to.

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

1 year

With so much uncertainty in tech right now, here's something you *can* control: the operating model your team uses to staff projects. In times of scarcity, picking the right model can give you and your team an edge in shipping quickly and creating impact. 🧵

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Tess Rosania

@ptr

5 years

This is one of the features I've been most excited about, for a long time. Slack is so much more than chat, and Workflow Builder is a first (huge) step toward putting the power of custom Platform Apps into the hands of everyday people.

Slack

@SlackHQ

5 years

Meet Workflow Builder. It's a new visual tool that allows Slack users to automate routine tasks by creating custom workflows. And it's going to change the way you work in Slack.

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