Brian Erickson

I'm a PM at Mailgun working on the tools developers use to build with email. This site is a collection of my work — case studies, projects I'm tinkering on, and some writing.

About

PM. Builder. Occasional tinkerer.

I started in software engineering and ended up in product. Turns out I like the whole problem, not just the code. I've worked across messaging, security, and developer platforms, mostly focused on the unglamorous middle: turning what customers actually need into things they adopt and keep using. This site is where I collect that work, plus whatever I'm tinkering on.

From the Archive

Past musings, preserved as context.

  1. How We Do Spikes

    Sophie Déziel gives a great summary of her team's approach to research spikes. We handle them in a similar way at Closely but I especially liked her simple…

  2. How Bungie Embraced Evolutionary Product Design with Destiny

    Dave Tach makes a great observation on the evolutionary nature of software products: This is the ebb and flow of software development, where bits and bytes…

  3. Common Log-in Problems and Solutions

    Nick Babich has a fresh look at one of the first and most error-prone experiences users have with any software product. Especially like his focus on the…

All writing