Product Tales for Dummies: The Year We Learned, Laughed, and Launched
A reflective look back on the year past and a hopeful glance ahead.
Ho ho ho, here we are everybody – almost at the end of the year, that special time when some of us are surrounded by our loving families, some are casually shaking gift boxes under the tree, and others are dreaming of making it in the big bad world of superstar digital products. Which one are you? Probably all three.
We’ll make this edition a little special, in the holiday spirit, and indulge you in some Dummi lore.
Professionals at social media consumption, dummies at content creation – the art of marketing and social media wizardry was foreign to most of us just a few months ago, believe it or not. That’s right - dummies were writing this newsletter all along.
Then Giulia, the chief Dummi, gathered the team one day and declared:
“Research helped us build a great product, now we’ve got to sell it!!”*cracks whip*
And so off we went – launching, yours truly, Substack, then another blog, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, even a podcast on every platform imaginable.
We interviewed seven amazing guests. Seven! Can you believe it? We can’t either.
We even got some big guns: an ex-Slack & Vend pro, a friendly AI engineer from Education Perfect, an early employee who Drift-ed their way to a $1.2 billion acquisition, and more.
(P.S. Don’t miss the last episode of the year btw – Christina has some wisdom to share on navigating hyper-growth, scaling internationally, and building adaptable teams.)
Ep 7: From MVP to Global Markets: Building, Localising and Scaling Products Internationally with Christina Baldarelli
In this episode, we chat with to Christina Baldarelli—Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Operating Partner at Ministry of Awesome, as well as a 1-1 Product Consultant and Fractional CPO—about:
• Christina’s unconventional journey into tech and product leadership.
• Lessons from scaling Mobi during New Zealand’s COVID-19 lockdown.
• Navigating product challenges and finding opportunities in international markets.
• Avoiding startup pitfalls and overspending on MVPs.
• Building adaptable teams and aligning product with business goals.
What have we been writing about? Glad you asked.
We wrote many blog posts about what we’re good at: user feedback, chrome extensions, project planning, and various dev practices, tips & tricks. We know you all like them, stats don’t lie.
We even have one more:
Don’t let disaster strike this holiday season. Secure your Azure ASP.NET app and party without a single worry in the world.
💻 Read the final blog post of the year here »
And then came the memes.
High-brow memes. Low-brow memes. Skits, experiments, and some ideas that deserved more likes than they got (we’re not bitter). The plan was simple: go viral. The reality? We’re keeping the pre-ordered celebration cake in the freezer… for now.
But we learned a lot. Next year, expect smarter jokes, sharper skits, and maybe, just maybe, a place in the spotlight.
Looking at the product itself? We’ve learned even more.
Dummi – a Chrome extension for mastering the art of capturing elusive software bugs – has come a long way. We brainstormed, built, tested, tore things apart, rebuilt, and listened. Funny thing: as we explored new directions, the signals from our *original idea* grew louder.
Where does that leave us? Somewhere exciting.
Where are we going? Well, YOU can help tell us.
📨 Flick us a message at product@dummi.com or here at Substack.
Thank you for being part of this journey.
Whether you’ve been with us from the start or you just stumbled in, we’re grateful for you. Building something that matters takes time, curiosity, and persistence – and we’re so excited to see what 2025 brings.
Have a wonderful holiday season, a restful break, and a New Year full of fresh ideas.
See you in 2025! 🎉