Product Management

It all starts with a vision

The Classical Approach What’s Wrong With This?

Concept/ Seed Round

Product Development

Alpha/Beta Testing

Launch/ 1st Ship

Product Development

-  Create Marcom Materials -  Create Positioning -  Target market

identification

•  Hire PR Agency •  Early Buzz

•  Create Demand •  Launch Event •  Branding

•  Hire Sales VP •  Hire 1st Sales Staff

•  Build Sales Organization

Marketing

Sales

•  Hire First Bus Dev

•  Do deals Business Development

Build It And They Will Come

•  Only true for life and death products –  i.e. Biotech Cancer Cure – Success is binary and issues are

development risks and distribution, not customer acceptance

•  Not true for most other products – Software, Consumer, Web –  Issues are customer acceptance and

market adoption

An Inexpensive Fix

Focus on Customers and Markets from Day One

How?

Company Building

Customer Discovery

Customer Validation

Customer Creation

Customer Development is as important as Product Development

Concept/ Bus. Plan

Product Dev. Alpha/Beta Test

Launch/ 1st Ship

Product Development

Customer Development Heuristics

•  Stop selling, start listening •  There are no facts inside your building, so

get outside •  Develop for the Few, not the Many •  Earlyvangelists make your company

– And are smarter than you •  The goal for release 1 is the minimum feature

set for earlyvangelists •  Test every hypothesis – be data driven

Rapid Prototyping

1.  Whiteboard Drawing 2.  The Paper Mock 3.  Wireframes 4.  Functional Mocks 5.  Code

Change is the only constant

Growth= Iteration

Choosing the character

42.3%

16.9% 14.6%

26.1%

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

A B C D

A the most preferred choice…leads the pack with 42% voting for him

People who chose D (26.1%)…sample 182 Stylish, smart, smiling and good personality. Young, clean and cool….local lad!

Looks intellectual, learned (beard), elderly, mature

Reasons for choosing A: looks knowledgeable, specs add intelligence. Reliable, Genuine & Experienced. Traveler and prepared as other add-ons

Looks happy, local (cap),

approachable

Loop in feedback early

Loop in feedback early

Involve Users in MVP Validation

Tools for Quick Iterations

1.  Interact with real users !! 2.  Fivesecondtest.com 3.  Usertesting.com 4.  Optimize.ly (A-B Testing) 5.  Google Analytics / Chartbeat 6.  Clicktale / TeaLeaf 7.  Webengage (Feedback management)

Quantiative Analytics

•  Google Analytics •  Chartbeat •  Flurry •  Set goals / events •  Monitor bounce rates •  Observe funnels

Qualitative Analytics •  Measuring Happiness •  How do my users behave ? What do they spend

their time looking at ? Why do they do what they do ?

•  User Interaction / Behaviour (Clicktale/UserFly) •  Net Promoter Score •  Surveys (on-site / off-site) •  Social actions on the website (Likes/Shares) •  Social Media Mentions / Sentiments

NPS Example

Qualitative Analytics

The HEART Framework •  Happiness

–  User attitude, qualitative metrics, perceptions •  Engagement

–  Behavioral signals, Depth of Interaction, Frequency, Clicks •  Adoption

–  % Users who adopt new product / feature, “Get” the product •  Retention

–  Returning users / Churn •  Task-Action

–  Efficiency, Error Rates, Time Taken, % who complete a specific goal –  Specific metrics / signals critical for your product’s success

A Few Things to Remember

1.  Everything you launch needs a hypothesis 2.  Set Daily, Weekly, Monthly Targets for your

metrics for hypothesis validation 3.  Be willing to throw stuff out - test “what can

we remove” 4.  Don’t plan assuming success 5.  Pivot, Pivot, Pivot

Further Reading

Thank you

Aloke Bajpai Chief “Experimentation” Officer

aloke@ixigo.com