Ryan Singer's Shape Up Pitch
Based on Ryan Singer's Shape Up methodology from Basecamp. Focuses on appetite-driven development with fat marker sketches and fixed time budgets.
Product Brief: Ryan Singer Basecamp "Shape Up" Variant
Ryan Singer's pitch format from "Shape Up": appetite-driven, solution sketch approach with explicit "rabbit holes" and "no-gos" to prevent scope creep.
[Product Name] - Shaped Brief
Author: [PM Name] | Date: [YYYY-MM-DD] | Status: [SHAPED | READY TO BUILD | IN PROGRESS]
The Pitch
What Is This?
[One paragraph describing the feature in simple terms]
Problem
What problem are we solving? Why does it matter?
[Clear statement of the problem. Include evidence from customer conversations or data.]
Why Now?
[Why is this the right time? What changed?]
The Appetite
How much should we spend on this?
Scope
Size: [Small (1-2 weeks) | Medium (2-4 weeks) | Large (6 weeks)] Complexity: [Low | Medium | High]
Budget Constraint
We're willing to spend X weeks of engineering effort. No more.
Timeline: [When does this need to launch?] Team: [Who's working on this?]
Showing 40 of 215 lines
Enter your email below to unlock the full template
Unlock Full Template
Enter your email to access the complete template
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Shape Up pitch?
A Shape Up pitch is a document that describes a product idea at the right level of abstraction - not too concrete (wireframes) and not too abstract (one-liner). It includes the problem, appetite (time budget), solution sketched with fat markers, rabbit holes to avoid, and no-gos.
How does Shape Up differ from Agile sprints?
Shape Up uses 6-week cycles instead of 2-week sprints, with a 2-week cooldown between cycles. Teams get full autonomy within the cycle, and work is shaped before being bet on - not estimated and scheduled from a backlog.
Other Product Brief Variants
Lenny Rachitsky's One-Pager
Lenny Rachitsky's structured one-pager format with clear sections for problem, appetite, solution, and metrics. Designed for rapid alignment across distributed teams.
Kevin Yien's Minimal Brief
Kevin Yien's ultra-minimal product brief format. Strips away everything non-essential to focus on the core problem and proposed solution in the fewest possible words.
Related Templates
Fill This Template With AI
PM33 turns these templates into living documents. AI-powered suggestions, auto-populated metrics, and team collaboration built in.
Join the Waitlist