Matt Watson

I've been a CTO with the product vision for over 20 years.

Now, I'm teaching tech companies and tech teams how to build better products and better teams with a product-driven mindset.

Why Your Developers Should Talk Directly to Customers: Lessons from AWS

The surprising productivity hack that transformed this developer's impact and what it means for your engineering team... ...more

product driven

March 20, 2025•6 min read

Why The Best Developers Are Already Great at Sales (They Just Don't Know It Yet)

The unexpected career superpower that's hiding in your developer mindset... ...more

product driven

March 18, 2025•5 min read

Great Engineers Make Poor CTOs: A Hard Truth About Technical Leadership

Your best engineer shouldn't be promoted to CTO. I learned this the hard way building multiple tech companies. Technical excellence ≠ leadership excellence. Here's what I've seen: Great engineers love... ...more

product driven

March 11, 2025•4 min read

What 2 Million Hours of Dev Team Management Taught Me About Dev Skills

The most successful technical teams I've led weren't necessarily the ones with the best coders - they were the ones that communicated effectively. You can't learn to swim by reading a book, and you ca... ...more

product driven

March 06, 2025•3 min read

The Hidden Scaling Crisis Every Startup CTO Must Overcome

The same technical brilliance that makes you an exceptional CTO in the early days can become your biggest obstacle to scaling. The good news? This isn't a technical problem. It's a structural one. An... ...more

product driven

March 04, 2025•4 min read

The Second Mover Success Formula

Have you ever noticed how many "revolutionary" products actually weren't the first of their kind? Facebook wasn't the first social network. Google wasn't the first search engine. The iPhone wasn... ...more

product driven

February 27, 2025•9 min read