Top 10 Things You Should Know

A living document of the most important problems in your product area

Ebi Atawodi
Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber)

Top 10 Things You Should Know

"It baffles me the number of PMs who, when I say 'tell me the top problems that keep you up at night,' start rambling. This is literally the thing you come to work for. This should excite you." - Ebi Atawodi

What It Is

A living document that every PM maintains listing the 10 most important problems in their product area. Updated quarterly, this document forces clarity about what matters most and creates alignment across product, engineering, design, and research.

The framework originated at Uber (called "More Money, More Problems" on the money team) and has been used successfully at Netflix and YouTube. It's both a personal discipline for PMs and a team alignment tool.

How It Works

The Core Document

Each PM maintains a document with 10 problems, which may include:

  • Qualitative problems - User pain points, feedback themes, usability issues
  • Quantitative problems - Metrics that are underperforming, conversion drops, churn signals
  • Technical debt - Infrastructure issues that limit what you can build

The Living Nature

The document is never finished. Every quarter:

  1. Review the current list
  2. Remove problems that have been solved
  3. Add newly discovered problems
  4. Re-prioritize based on new information

The Alignment Test

If you ask your PM, engineering manager, design lead, and researcher "what are the top 5 problems for [area]?" - they should all give the same answer. If they can't, more alignment work is needed.

How to Apply It

  1. Start your document today

    • Create a simple doc titled "[Your Area] - Top 10 Things You Should Know"
    • Don't worry about getting to 10 immediately - start with what you know

  2. Gather inputs from everywhere

    • Customer research and feedback
    • Support tickets and escalations
    • Data analysis and metrics
    • Engineering team concerns
    • Your own product usage

  3. Make it accessible

    • Use a memorable short link (e.g., "go/studio-problems")
    • Make it commentable, not view-only
    • Share it proactively with new team members and stakeholders

  4. Use it strategically

    • Open presentations with "X things you should know"
    • When new chief product officer joins, Ebi leads with "4 numbers and 4 insights"
    • Reference it when prioritizing or saying no to requests

  5. Scale it across teams

    • Have stakeholders (marketing, ops, support) create their own "10 Things"
    • Consolidate insights in strategy sessions
    • Use the shared understanding to drive planning

The Consolidation Process

In strategy sessions, multiple "10 Things" documents come together:

  1. Collect inputs - Each stakeholder team presents their top 10
  2. Discuss and debate - What overlaps? What conflicts?
  3. Synthesize - Create the final consolidated list
  4. Align - Ensure all triads can recite the same top problems

When to Use It

  • As a continuous practice for every PM
  • When onboarding to a new role or team
  • During quarterly and annual planning
  • When presenting to leadership (lead with key problems/insights)
  • When someone requests a meeting to "understand what you do" - send them the doc first
  • When prioritizing features or requests - reference against known problems

Pro Tips

Include tech debt: "Infrastructure is the product. Period. It's product debt, not just tech debt. You cannot build a skyscraper on a shaky foundation."

Be specific: "The average reading age of an American is 11 years old" is more powerful than "users struggle with complex text."

Stack rank ruthlessly: 10 items forces hard choices. You can't include everything.

Start with 3-5: Ebi often distills down to the top 3-4 for executive presentations.

Make it memorable: Name it something fun ("More Money, More Problems") to increase engagement.

Source

  • Guest: Ebi Atawodi
  • Episode: "Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber)"
  • Key Discussion: (00:32:44) - Top 10 things framework
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

Related Frameworks

  • Empathize-Create-Evangelize - Top 10 is a core tool in the empathize phase
  • Four Risks Framework - Another way to categorize problems
  • Friction Logging - Complementary approach to identifying problems
  • Insights-Strategy-Big Rocks - How problems feed into strategy
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