What is product management, and what great product management looks like?
This talk by @sachinrekhi on The Art of Product Management is super helpful to understand PM.
I've tried to summarise a few of my learnings in this thread 🧵
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This talk by @sachinrekhi on The Art of Product Management is super helpful to understand PM.
I've tried to summarise a few of my learnings in this thread 🧵
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What do product managers do?
Product managers drive the vision, strategy, design, and execution of their products.
Clear distinction between drive and own. They are driving the process, doesn't mean they have to do all the work.
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Product managers drive the vision, strategy, design, and execution of their products.
Clear distinction between drive and own. They are driving the process, doesn't mean they have to do all the work.
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Four key terms used in the above definition
1. Vision
2. Strategy
3. Design
4. Execution
Let's understand these four dimensions in more detail.
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1. Vision
2. Strategy
3. Design
4. Execution
Let's understand these four dimensions in more detail.
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1. Vision
A compelling vision articulates how the world will be a better place if you succeed. It is that lofty goal that you aspire your product and service to eventually bring to the world and change it in a meaningful way.
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A compelling vision articulates how the world will be a better place if you succeed. It is that lofty goal that you aspire your product and service to eventually bring to the world and change it in a meaningful way.
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It is incredibly hard to have a clear vision without clear thinking. Jeff Bezos popularised a concept in which every team member while proposing a new idea, should prepare a 6-page narrative on it. He believes it is impossible to produce such document without clear thinking.
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When it comes to developing a vision, it’s all about inspiring the people. A good product manager keeps on reminding the goal of the company. Keep on repeating the goal until the team members frequently start to repeat the vision and begin to use the exact same words.
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2. Strategy
A compelling strategy details exactly how you are going to dominate the market.
Difference between strategy and vision - A vision should be stable, but the strategy needs to be iterated on and refined until you find product/market fit.
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A compelling strategy details exactly how you are going to dominate the market.
Difference between strategy and vision - A vision should be stable, but the strategy needs to be iterated on and refined until you find product/market fit.
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What is Product-Market Fit (PMF)?
You find a market that absolutely loves the product and you have a winning strategy to dominate the market.
When you find PMF you decide to grow the market and then you again find PMF with a larger audience.
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You find a market that absolutely loves the product and you have a winning strategy to dominate the market.
When you find PMF you decide to grow the market and then you again find PMF with a larger audience.
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He believes that the best way to detail your strategy is by documenting the product-market fit hypothesis.
Key dimensions involved to document product-market fit hypothesis are 👇
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Key dimensions involved to document product-market fit hypothesis are 👇
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i. Target Audience
Who is the ideal customer? Don’t think about the total addressable market.
Think of the target audience as the bullseye. Who is at the center of the bullseye? Who is your ideal customer that will absolutely love your product?
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Who is the ideal customer? Don’t think about the total addressable market.
Think of the target audience as the bullseye. Who is at the center of the bullseye? Who is your ideal customer that will absolutely love your product?
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ii. Problem you’re solving
It’s important to articulate problems independent of customers. Is the problem you’re solving a vitamin or a painkiller?
Keep on iterating on the problem till you reach a point where it comes to the need to have category (painkiller).
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It’s important to articulate problems independent of customers. Is the problem you’re solving a vitamin or a painkiller?
Keep on iterating on the problem till you reach a point where it comes to the need to have category (painkiller).
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iii. Value Proposition
It is not the features but it is a promise to customers on the value you will deliver to them with your solution.
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It is not the features but it is a promise to customers on the value you will deliver to them with your solution.
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iv. Strategic Differentiation
Why is your product better than everyone else in the industry? He says you should be striving for a 10x improvement over everyone else solutions.
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Why is your product better than everyone else in the industry? He says you should be striving for a 10x improvement over everyone else solutions.
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Ideally, incremental improvement should bring you in a good place but unfortunately the cost of switching software, using different products and services, metal inertial to even bother is so high that most products that deliver only 2-3x improvement get passed upon.
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v. Competition
How is your product improving upon those alternatives?
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How is your product improving upon those alternatives?
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vi. Acquisition Strategy
"If you build it they will not come"
How will you find and attract potential customers and in the most cost-effective manner?
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"If you build it they will not come"
How will you find and attract potential customers and in the most cost-effective manner?
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vii. Monetization Strategy
What are your primary and secondary ways to make money? More importantly what is the willingness to pay of this customer?
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What are your primary and secondary ways to make money? More importantly what is the willingness to pay of this customer?
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viii. KPIs
Always important to define key performance indicators upfront.
What does success looks like?
This helps to identify how you’re doing as you keep on innovating along the journey.
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Always important to define key performance indicators upfront.
What does success looks like?
This helps to identify how you’re doing as you keep on innovating along the journey.
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The advice he gives while detailing these 8 product-market fit hypotheses is to minimize the dimensions of innovation.
Don’t innovate all dimensions while starting up. Instead, innovate on a few of these and use the best practices in the rest.
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Don’t innovate all dimensions while starting up. Instead, innovate on a few of these and use the best practices in the rest.
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Don’t go like we have a solution that is 10x better than others, we have a brand new monetization model, we have a new strategy to acquire new customers, and also we are going for a different set of customers compared to our customers.
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3. Design
A compelling design delivers a useful, usable, and delightful experience to your customers.
There are techniques to make products useful and usable like customer research, usability studies.
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A compelling design delivers a useful, usable, and delightful experience to your customers.
There are techniques to make products useful and usable like customer research, usability studies.
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But to make a product delightful requires emotional intelligence.
This is achieved by falling in love with the problem you are solving for your target customers.
Don’t fall in love with your solution but with the problem.
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This is achieved by falling in love with the problem you are solving for your target customers.
Don’t fall in love with your solution but with the problem.
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The way to do this is to develop personas. Personas are fictional characters to represent archetypes of the users of your product.
To develop this, talk to a lot of your users and understand them, their personalities, their mentality, and psychology.
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To develop this, talk to a lot of your users and understand them, their personalities, their mentality, and psychology.
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Talk about what their day looks like, what problems do they face during the day.
Increase the exposure hours that is the amount of time the R&D team spends with customers, understanding their pain points and seeing them actually using and getting feedback on the product.
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Increase the exposure hours that is the amount of time the R&D team spends with customers, understanding their pain points and seeing them actually using and getting feedback on the product.
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NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a fairly close measure to understand delight.
If you are a raving fan of the product and you’re telling about it to other people, then that product must have delighted you and not just solved your use case.
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If you are a raving fan of the product and you’re telling about it to other people, then that product must have delighted you and not just solved your use case.
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4. Execution
Relentless execution ultimately decides whether your vision becomes a reality.
When you’re doing product management, if you’re not spending 60% of your time on execution you’re doing it wrong.
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Relentless execution ultimately decides whether your vision becomes a reality.
When you’re doing product management, if you’re not spending 60% of your time on execution you’re doing it wrong.
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Execution is this basic loop of Define Validate and Iterate.
You cannot skip any of the steps because sometimes when you’re executing really fast you keep on iterating and iterating. You’ve to be validating and redefining.
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You cannot skip any of the steps because sometimes when you’re executing really fast you keep on iterating and iterating. You’ve to be validating and redefining.
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Define your hypotheses - Beyond strategy, design, mockups, wireframes, etc.
Validate your hypotheses - Talking to customers, usability studies, UX research, putting the prototype in front of actual customers and having them use it, looking at engagement metrics.
Iterating
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Validate your hypotheses - Talking to customers, usability studies, UX research, putting the prototype in front of actual customers and having them use it, looking at engagement metrics.
Iterating
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These were some of the few learnings from the video. I would highly recommend everyone looking to understand PM to checkout this video.
I got this suggestion from @TheProductfolks website.
theproductfolks.com/learn-product-…
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I got this suggestion from @TheProductfolks website.
theproductfolks.com/learn-product-…
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1. Follow @yash_eth for more such threads on Product Management, Web3, Artificial Intelligence.
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