Flying home from our Broomfield office, I finished two books that completely shifted how I think about data collection:

  • Product-Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself by Wes Bush
  • Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value by Melissa Perri

Product Led Growth Book Cover

Product-Led Growth resonated immediately. As someone who prefers to navigate trials and evaluations independently (both professionally and personally), Bush’s framework made perfect sense. The core insight that stuck: deep understanding of customer behavior can cut through sales noise and provide real value during conversion cycles.

Escaping the Build Trap Book Cover

Here’s where it gets interesting for security folks. While diving deep into Data Privacy Impact Assessments (DPIAs) recently - mapping exactly what data we collect, where we store it, where we send it, and what legitimate business purposes drive that collection - I realized something.

There’s significant overlap between product telemetry and security audit logs. Many of the events that product teams track for user behavior analytics are the same events that security teams need for audit trails and compliance. Could this overlap be leveraged to make both domains better?

What if we designed data collection that serves both customer insights and security requirements? Instead of separate systems collecting overlapping data, we could build unified telemetry that provides product teams with conversion insights while giving security teams the audit trails they need.

Both books are worth reading even if you’re not in a traditional product role. The frameworks apply surprisingly well to security and infrastructure teams trying to understand their internal customers.