The Decision Log
by Kevin Yien • Head of Product, Merchant Experiences at Stripe
Kevin leads product for merchant experiences at Stripe. Previously, he built the restaurant business and ecosystem teams at Square and served as Head of Product and Design at Mutiny.
🎙️ Episode Context
Kevin Yien shares counter-intuitive insights on product management, arguing that great PMs convert team potential into kinetic energy. He discusses tactical frameworks for improving product sense through decision logging, hiring via 'unsell' emails, and automating user research loops.
Problem It Solves
Product sense is often seen as mystical; this framework turns it into a trainable skill by creating a feedback loop for judgment.
Framework Overview
Product sense is the ability to make good decisions with insufficient data. To improve this, PMs must log their decisions (or predictions of others' decisions), document the rationale, and review them after a set period to validate their intuition.
🧠 Framework Structure
Identify a decision point (internal o...
Write down the decision and the speci...
Set a calendar reminder (e.g., 6 mont...
When to Use
Continuously, both for your own roadmap decisions and when observing competitors' moves.
Common Mistakes
Only logging decisions but never reviewing them, or relying on hindsight bias instead of written proof.
Real World Example
When Shopify launched the 'Shop' app, Kevin logged his prediction that they were hijacking the fulfillment loop to compete with Amazon. He later confirmed this with the team.
PMs need as many reps as possible in making decisions, documenting the rationale behind those decisions, and then crucially seeing the outcome of them.
— Kevin Yien