Sink or Ship

Sink or Ship

A field guide for leading products without a playbook

By Chris Adolphus

Frameworks can guide a decision. They cannot make it for you. A book for new product managers learning to lead when priorities shift, evidence is incomplete and the work cannot wait.

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Sink or Ship by Chris Adolphus. The cover shows an overturned ship beneath a blue waterline, with the title in bold black and white lettering.

When the framework meets the job.

A founder wants to ship by Friday. Sales has promised a customer something “soon.” Engineering has already started sketching a solution. You are still trying to understand the problem.

Frameworks help you organise your thinking. But in a startup, the decisions often arrive before the research is complete, the priorities are agreed or the process is in place.

Sink or Ship is about the judgement those moments require: knowing what to question, deciding what can wait and taking responsibility for what happens after something ships.

Written for people finding their way into product, it connects the ideas you learn with the work you actually have to do.

Inside the book

Thirty lessons follow the decisions that shape a product and the person responsible for it—from understanding the problem to shipping the work, handling pressure and building a career you can sustain.

  1. Part I: From Accidental to Intentional

  2. Part II: Discovery Without Theatre

  3. Part III: Prioritisation in a World That's Always on Fire

  4. Part IV: Shipping Without Becoming the Blocker

  5. Part V: Stakeholders, Founders, and "Urgent" Requests

  6. Part VI: Career Safety and Growth (So You Don't Burn Out)

Chris Adolphus

Chris Adolphus builds products and the teams behind them. He wrote Sink or Ship for people stepping into product management, especially from other tech disciplines, who know the frameworks but are still learning what to do when reality refuses to follow them.

The book starts from a conviction: useful processes support judgement; they do not replace it. In a startup, you often have to make the decision before the process catches up.

A two-time founder with one exit, Chris started at Writesea as the sole product person and grew the team to more than 15 people. He led a product pivot, oversaw the sunsetting of existing products, and helped grow annual recurring revenue from $0 to $1.2 million within 26 months.

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Before you read

Who is this book for?

New product managers, particularly those moving from design, engineering, operations or customer-facing roles. It is also for founders doing product work while building their teams.

What does each lesson include?

Each lesson starts with a recognisable situation, examines the decision behind it and ends with a checklist, script or template you can adapt to your own work. The emphasis is on understanding the decision, not simply following the steps.

How do I reserve a copy?

Choose “Reserve my copy” and leave your details. We’ll email you when pre-orders open. No payment is required, and there’s no obligation to buy.

Reserve your copy of Sink or Ship

Leave your details and we’ll email you when pre-orders open. No payment is required, and there’s no obligation to buy.

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Start with “Trust but Verify”: a complete lesson on checking what has been built before passing that confidence on to others.

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Includes the one-page Verification Brief. No signup required.