Not By The Book
Stories of business growth, one discovery step at the time
Continuous Discovery can change your business.
This book shows you how it actually happens — through real stories, real decisions, and real results from my journey scaling discovery inside one of Sweden’s fastest-growing scale-ups.
From the early experiments… to the first trio… all the way to discovery becoming a strategic muscle. You’ll get the practical steps (and the missteps) to guide you through your discovery journey.
Everything you’re about to read didn’t come from theory, it came from doing.
It’s the journey of how discovery fueled a successful IPO, sustained double-digit growth, and became a core value engine for an entire company.
Why this book matters
If you want to learn how to:
Fuel growth and innovation
Make better, faster decisions
Build cross-company alignment
Deepen customer-centricity
Define the next high-impact step
Create buy-in and scale discovery habits
….this book is for you
What’s inside
A clear, practical guide through the 4 stages of discovery adoption, based entirely on real examples from real teams, with wins, roadblocks, and “I wish I’d known this earlier” moments.
Start: curiosity meets the first experiments
Where innovators run small tests under the radar. Delivery still trumps learning.
You’ll learn how to create early impact without disrupting the status quo, and how to show value before you have buy-in.
For you if: discovery isn’t formal yet, teams rarely talk to customers, backlog is predetermined.
Explore: the first product trio is born
A pilot team proves what discovery can do.
This is where you learn to connect user pain to business impact, share results publicly, and secure leadership sponsorship before scaling.
For you if: you’re testing discovery with one team and need it to show real, tangible results.
Ramp-up: when discovery spreads across teams
The “discovery fever” hits. Multiple teams want in, and expectations rise. You’ll learn:
Why not to scale too fast
How to create support systems, rituals, and cross-team learnings
How to avoid “change debt”
How to balance different team realities
For you if: the teams doing discovery are growing, and you need structure, clarity, and more leadership engagement.
Scale: discovery becomes a strategic muscle
Discovery moves beyond product trios and into strategy, long-term planning, and board-level conversations. You’ll learn:
How discovery shapes company strategy
How to align the whole org around insights
How to involve stakeholders without slowing down
Why language, ownership, and resilience matter more than frameworks
For you if: you want discovery to guide strategic decisions and drive company-wide alignment.
Table of content
Real stories, hard-learned lessons
From invalidating a “priority #1” in five days…
to scaling discovery across seven teams…
to a feature that drove conversion during a market downturn… this book shows the actual decisions, conversations, and trade-offs that created business value.
Business impact you can quantify
You’ll see exactly how discovery improved:
Time to value
Decision quality
Team engagement
Retention and conversion
The mindset you need
If there is one lesson I learned during my 7-years-long journey is that discovery adoption is not linear.
Sometimes you move forward. Sometimes you go back.
Sometimes something or someone changes, and you’ll have to “prove it all again”.
Every discovery journey has one key ingredient: resilience.
About the author
Francesca Cortesi
From Product Manager to CPO, Francesca Cortesi has spent almost two decades building and scaling digital products across different organizations and stages, always guided by one question: how do we create real, lasting impact?
She has helped shape some of Europe’s most loved digital products by embedding continuous discovery into product strategy, decision-making, and organizational culture.
Not as a framework, but as a way of working that drives business results.
Francesca shares the lessons she and her teams learned the hard way. No glossy success stories. Just honest reflections, practical insights, and what it really takes to build customer-centric products at scale.
This book is part of that effort.
FAQ
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Product leaders who want clearer decisions, stronger alignment, and better results
Product teams who want to work closer to users without slowing delivery
Founders & executives who want a more customer-centric, insight-driven company
Anyone who wants to build discovery habits that create business impact — not just theory
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This isn’t theory. It’s the journey of introducing and scaling discovery inside one of Sweden’s fastest-growing scale-ups—ending in a successful IPO, sustained double-digit growth, and discovery becoming a core value engine.
You’ll learn how to: fuel growth and innovation, scale decision-making, deepen customer-centricity, and define the next high-impact step—with deep insights on what worked and what didn’t.
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If you expect are a blueprint, and an easy to follow checklist, this book is not for you.
What you’ll get instead are stages, trade-offs, and principles you can tailor to your context. No matter if your org hasn’t started with discovery, or if you are already deep into the practice.
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It is completely free. I wrote this book to spread inspiration about discovery, and show what is possible, in a real product organization.
Just enter your email to download and enjoy the ride.
A promise from me: I will not spam you, your email will be used for occasional news , and you can unsubscribe at any time
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I would love to hear what impact the book has made. If you want to chat, go to the contact me section of this website, and shoot me an email.
