In product, we spend most of our time trying to get people to use what we build.

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But what happens when they do—and your product can’t keep up?

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I’ve lived it.

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We launched a brand-new product that, within months, drove millions in sales. On paper, it looked like a dream—users wanted what we built, and they wanted it fast.

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Behind the scenes, it was chaos. Systems buckled. Tickets piled up. Engineers were firefighting while growth celebrated. Users kept asking for more while we were struggling to keep the basics running.

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People like to call it a “good problem.”

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It’s still a problem.

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What We Learned In That High-Pressure Phase

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1️⃣ Cut Through the Noise

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When demand spikes, you can’t do everything.

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We locked ourselves in a room and asked the hard questions:

• What matters most right now?
• What can we deliver quickly to ease the pain?
• Where can we have the biggest impact?

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Your job as PM is to bring focus so the team can act.

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2️⃣ Silence Breaks Trust

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Users can live with issues. They can’t live with silence.

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We learned to communicate early—even when we didn’t have all the answers:

• Tell customers what’s happening.
• Align with stakeholders, even on rough timelines.
• Share updates before people ask.

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Honesty beats silence, every time.

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3️⃣ Simplify to Survive

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That surge forced us to get ruthless.

• We cut edge cases.
• Paused nice-to-haves.
• Focused everything on keeping the core flows alive.

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Simplicity bought us the breathing room to fix what mattered.

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4️⃣ Partner with Engineering

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“Just tell engineering to fix it” doesn’t work here.

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Yes, we needed a deeper refactor, but first, we needed space:

• We tuned caches.
• Reduced expensive calls.
• Added guardrails to heavy processes.

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We did it side-by-side with engineering, making trade-offs together to protect the user experience.

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5️⃣ Look Back Before You Move On

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Once the fires were out, we didn’t just rush ahead.

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We took a step back to ask:

• How do we prevent this next time?
• What did this teach us about our systems—and ourselves?

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A surge in demand is feedback. If you don’t listen, you’ll break again.

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The Real Win

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Yes, we made it through.

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But more importantly, we gave ourselves the time and space to rebuild the right way.

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Focusing on what mattered, communicating openly, simplifying, and partnering deeply with engineering—these kept us from sinking when we were at risk of drowning. And they gave us the runway to strengthen the product so the next wave wouldn’t break us.

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One More Thing

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This experience drove home a hard truth: If you’re building digital products, you’re building for scale—whether you realize it or not.

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It’s easy to think you’ll deal with scale “later.” But growth can hit you faster than you expect. And when it does, it will test every assumption you’ve made about your systems, processes, and priorities.

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Next, I’ll share what it really takes to build digital products that don’t just launch—but scale, without breaking.

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Stay tuned.