Product [prod-uhkt]
noun.
: a thing produced by labor.
: a person or thing produced by or resulting from a process, as a natural, social, or historical one; result.
: the totality of goods or services that a company makes available; output.
Product Requirement Doc (PRD)
What is it!?
It’s to make sure we don’t build the wrong thing.
A world-class product manager would make sure this doc is:
Clear but not too long – everything important is included without extra fluff
Focused on real people – it’s about solving user problems, not just adding features
Tied to business goals – it helps the company grow or succeed in some way
Easy for everyone to understand – whether you’re a designer, engineer, or manager, you’ll get it
”PRD product requirement doc - Tell me what would a world class product manager create in a product requirement doc for a web app and use layman’s terms”
I actually punched this prompt to ChatGPT 4o and it worked pretty well. I learned this from a software engineer friend.
It’s a simple trick to ask ChatGPT to be an expert in whatever we are learning and it focuses its answers on the “Domain Knowlege”.
The last part, “layman’s terms” I like to use it to get rid of any corporate jargon that get in the way.
There are simply too many “prompt” hack experts out there that teach us how to write a 5 paragraph prompts. At a certain point it’s an overkill. The more we write the more boundaries we set for the AI and the result sometimes isn’t better than the shorter prompts. I think these simple cues work better than seeking the perfect prompts.
Typically Product Requirement Doc is for everyone to be on the same page like the designers / engineers and project managers.
In this case we have to do everything so we are writing this more for us. This is a great exercise for us to be very clear about what we want to build, and most importantly - What we DON’T want to build.
One of the biggest traps for smart engineers is optimizing things that should not exist.
…
At the point in which you can properly frame the question, the answer is comparatively easy.
- Elon Musk, Oct 1 2019
What does PRD look like in action?
I’m glad that you asked!
I found many free templates to make my first PRD.
Here’s the link for the templates that are offered by Notion:
📓📙📒 Notion FREE PRD Templates
I do have to admit - I didn’t really like any of them. Some were too generic. Some were too much details. Most were full of corporate jargon. So I took a bit of time to ask ChatGPT to make a custom one for myself.
You can duplicate it and also see live how I’m building out my PRD for BetterFriend. This is a live document which means I will change it constantly. You can also see the actual information that I will put in it for the BetterFriend project.
⚡️⚡️ BetterFriend PRD Building Publicly v1 ⚡️⚡️
More Resources for AI Prompts
OpenAI now has guides. It’s likely higher quality than from elsewhere.
Here they are!
OpenAI Academy Link
Also Guides on the API doc that tells you some tips as well
OpenAI API prompt guide
Oh I also created a logo which I’ll share tomorrow how I landed on this:
See you tomorrow!
⚡️BetterFriend Project Day 8 - 38
