The Product Bus

25/08/2026

There’s a point in a growing business where having an experienced product person on the team would be incredibly useful, but hiring one full-time probably doesn’t make sense yet.

That’s a big part of why we created Traction Lab.

We’ve played those roles. We’ve been the product hire brought in to work out what to focus on, make sense of what customers are telling us, find the commercial opportunities and help a business turn them into something real. Traction Lab gives you access to that experience without having to make the hire.

For 12 weeks, we join your team and help you work out where the real growth opportunities are, what the evidence is telling you and what you should actually focus on next. Then we help you do the work, whether that’s digging into customer behaviour, reviewing sales calls, testing your positioning, working through pricing or figuring out why something that looked promising isn’t quite landing.

It’s deliberately hands-on. We’re not there to hand you a strategy deck and disappear. We’re there to bring the kind of senior product leadership we’ve provided inside startups and growing businesses, and put it to work on yours.

Think of it as having a product leader on your shoulder.

(Just, thankfully, not literally.)

Learn more about Traction Lab: productbus.com/traction-lab

25/06/2026

"I'd totally use this" is not a sale.

The Product Bus is spending a morning working out how to turn interest into sales by building a validation audience.

We're focusing on who your real buyers are based on commercial signals,
where to reach them, and how to use AI to help.

You'll come away with a clear buyer map and 10 custom outreach messages ready to send.

Wed 1 July, Stone & Chalk Melbourne. $149, (50% off for Compass Plus members)

Seats are limited!

https://luma.com/4ogg89s4

23/06/2026

If customers are paying you, it's tempting to think willingness to pay is settled. Often it isn't, not for the thing you actually want to sell.

A lot of businesses get paid well for custom work. Every client wants it slightly different, you build it to suit, they pay. That proves they'll pay for the bespoke version. It doesn't prove they'll pay for a standard, productised version at a price that lets you scale. Those are two different questions. The second decides whether the business grows or just keeps you busy.

Custom revenue can hide this for a long time. It feels like demand, and it is, but it's demand for the most expensive, least scalable version of what you do.

Worth asking: if you offered a standard version at a set price, with less hand-holding, would the same customers still buy? That answer changes how you build.

This is the kind of call we work through with founders in Traction Lab, our hands-on commercial intensive. Over twelve weeks, one on one, we get in the detail of your business with you and work through the real decisions: what to charge, which customer to back, which version of the offer is the one worth scaling. You make the calls, we're alongside you helping you make them well, and the thinking stays in the business once we're done.

It's for founders with a product in market and some paying customers but we're happy to have a chat and see if it's a fit.

This is our first pilot round, priced to match: $1,000 a month for three months, or $2,700 upfront.

More details: https://theproductbus.com/traction-lab

Or drop us a note at [email protected] to find out more.

Evidence-based product strategy consultancy in Melbourne. From free self-serve tools to fractional product leadership.

13/05/2026

Investors don't fund pitch decks. They fund evidence.

The founders who get the yes walk in with three things most pitches skip:

Validated demand. Not 'people said they'd buy it.' Actual signal: pre-orders, paid pilots, waitlist conversion, retention data.

Willingness to pay at a price that works. Real money changing hands, or a credible path to it.A business model the numbers support.

Unit economics that work at the scale being raised for.Most founders spend weeks on the deck and minutes on the evidence underneath it.

The pitch is the surface. The evidence is what gets funded.We're running a free session on Friday for founders preparing for investor conversations.

This is the first of four free microlearning sessions on our new platform Startup Compass this May. Grab your seat at Luma to join in!

A free session for founders and operators preparing for investment conversations. Understand what investors evaluate and where most pitches fall short. Most…

10/03/2026

Most startup ideas don’t fail because they’re bad. They fail because no one tested them before building.

The 5-Day Kill Your Idea Challenge runs 23-28 March and it’s designed to help you pressure-test your idea with real people, not just friends who tell you it sounds great.

Over 5 days, alongside other founders, you’ll:

Learn how your customers actually think about competition
Design a willingness-to-pay test (because interest and intent are not the same thing)
Run that test with real buyers
Reach a verdict: GO, PIVOT or STOP

You’ll walk away with a tested idea, evidence to back your next move, and a repeatable process you can use on any future idea.

$79 | 23-28 March | Live Sessions Via Zoom

Sign up for the Challenge → https://luma.com/oph6hq4d

If your idea survives, it deserves to exist. Let’s find out together!

The Kill Your Idea Challenge is part of Kill Your Ideas Month at The Product Bus. It’s a set of events and workshops designed to help founders learn the practical skills to test ideas quickly instead of spending months building the wrong thing.

Check out the full calendar here: https://luma.com/theproductbus

12/01/2026

The biggest risk in digital health isn’t the tech, it’s skipping buyer validation.

Why does it matter? Healthcare is complex. Buyers, users and beneficiaries are often different people. Procurement is slow. Regulation matters. So guessing your way through validation costs more time and money than most founders have. And if you don’t know who's paying, you're not ready to build.

Validate Express: Digital Health Edition is a structured 12-week online validation sprint for founders who want evidence, not assumptions.

You’ll clarify your buyer, test willingness to pay, understand your pathway to adoption, and make smarter decisions before investing in a build.

If you’ve got a digital health or wellbeing idea or even an MVP and want to give it a real shot, this is where to start.

Applications open 16 January. Find out more at the link!

Boost your digital health startup with the Startup Ideation Validation Course. Transform ideas into validated products in 12 weeks.