Product AF: Thinking in Product, Writing to Figure it Out

I think about product management a lot. Probably too much.

But that’s the job, right? Good product isn’t just about shipping features, it’s about solving the right problems, making better decisions, and constantly refining your approach.

At its core, product management is just problem-solving. Everything else - frameworks, practices, processes, habits - is just a means to get better and better at it.

This blog is one of my elses. Product AF for two reasons:

1. I do product. It’s my craft, my career, my way of thinking.

2. Product as f***. Because product is messy, complicated, and takes an obsessive type of brain. If you know, you know.

What You’ll Find Here

Writing helps me uncover the principles behind great products. The more I write, the clearer they become, and the better I get at understanding and explaining. It sharpens my thinking, and better thinking builds better products.

🛠 No-BS Stuff – Real work: I write as much for myself as for subscribers. I avoid platitudes because they don’t help me get better…honest reflection does. I’m here to reflect on and inspect the hard lessons, the trade-offs, and the real thinking behind good (and bad) decisions.

🔥 Hot Takes & Mental Models – I avoid hand-wavy statements and vague advice. But I do believe in foundational principles: ideas that hold up across contexts. My superpower is simplifying before I go deep. Breaking things down helps me contextualize what I already know (levers, inputs, outputs, results) so I can go deep with purpose. It keeps me from reinventing the wheel and helps me spot the patterns that challenge conventional wisdom.

🎯 Actionable Ideas – If it’s not useful beyond myself, I don’t write about it. Hopefully you’ll also find ideas you can take, tweak, and apply to your own work.

That’s how I find my way to the useful stuff. And this blog? One of my favorite elses.

For more elses, a bit about me: arifranklin.me