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Escaping the Build Trap cover

Escaping the Build Trap

How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value

Stop shipping features for their own sake and create real value.

by Melissa Perri

Escaping the Build Trap explains how companies get stuck measuring success by features shipped instead of value created, and how to break out. Perri lays out the role of product management, the product manager career path, and the strategy and organizational structures that orient teams around outcomes. She uses a fictional case study to show the shift in practice.

Startups easily fall into the build trap, equating busyness with progress, and this book reframes the goal as customer and business value. It gives founders a clear picture of what good product management and product strategy should produce.

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