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Instigator Blog

Lean Analytics, startups, angel investing, product management and more!

The Importance of Understanding Your Best Users

June 20, 2014 by Ben Yoskovitz

Every startup has a certain percentage of “good” users. I put good in double quotes because the definition of a good user will vary depending on the startup. You need to define what a “good” user is for your startup. Let’s look at an example… For an early stage startup that’s got an MVP in […]

Filed Under: Lean Analytics, Product Management

Design is Purpose Driven and Solves Problems

February 14, 2014 by Ben Yoskovitz

I’m not a designer. Or an expert in UX or UI. But as a product manager, it’s my job to understand how design (and UI/UX) can be applied to solving problems. (It’s also my job to have an opinion…hopefully an educated one!) A product manager’s job is to understand the problems faced by users/customers and […]

Filed Under: Product Management

The Challenge of Changing People’s Behavior

January 30, 2014 by Ben Yoskovitz

Building a product is easy. Getting people to use your product consistently is hard. The real challenge is changing people’s behavior. In most cases, people already have a solution to the problem you’re trying to solve, and now you’re coming along and claiming that you’re better. Often founders believe it’s a no-brainer to be able […]

Filed Under: Product Management

Product Managers Stay Until the End

January 16, 2014 by Ben Yoskovitz

Most of the heavy lifting that a product manager is responsible for is at the beginning of a project. They’re often in charge of customer validation, spec’ing things out, wireframes, prototyping, team building, etc. Once a project gets into the hands of developers, a product manager is still involved, but doesn’t have as much physical […]

Filed Under: Product Management

Tiny, New, Addictive Behaviors (or How to Build an Awesome Minimum Viable Product)

July 2, 2013 by Ben Yoskovitz

Early on, once you’ve identified a problem genuinely worth solving, you need to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and put it into the hands of early adopters. In Lean Analytics, we call this the Stickiness Stage. I recently wrote that most startups fail at this point–they simply don’t get the traction they need (in […]

Filed Under: Lean Analytics, Lean Startup, Product Management, Startups

Don’t Squeeze Your Product Managers Into Uselessness

August 22, 2012 by Ben Yoskovitz

Product managers are important. They won’t be the first hire in a startup –since the CEO is very product-focused, particularly early on– but at some point in time, CEOs need product managers to help out. When that happens, product managers have to be very careful about not getting squeezed between the CEO and the development […]

Filed Under: Product Management

A Holistic View of Products and Product Management

August 20, 2012 by Ben Yoskovitz

My definition of “product” is broader than most. I think of product as everything and anything a company outputs that touches customers. Your product isn’t just the physical item you deliver to customers, or the software that your customers use. It’s the entire experience your customers have with your company. Product = Customer Experience This […]

Filed Under: Product Management

Moving Towards a Continuous Integration and Deployment Process

July 26, 2012 by Ben Yoskovitz

Believing in continuous process improvement is one thing, implementing it is another story. But that’s part of the product manager’s job — to evaluate the processes you have in place for product development, find the trouble spots and try to fix them. In fact, that’s everyone’s job: standing by while things aren’t working is a […]

Filed Under: Product Management

The Role of Product Managers

June 8, 2012 by Ben Yoskovitz

I came across an interesting discussion on Branch about the role and future of product managers. I’m not a member there so I couldn’t respond directly, but figured I’d put my thoughts here instead. Yesterday the discussion only had a few comments on it. Today there are more and one of them is very similar […]

Filed Under: Product Management

6 Tips for Implementing Continuous Process Improvement

February 13, 2012 by Ben Yoskovitz

Most startups are so busy racing around that they rarely take the time to evaluate and improve their own processes. It’s unfortunate, because as a startup matures it won’t be able to function the same way it did at the very beginning. Once you throw in users, customers, more code, freelancers, more employees, etc. it […]

Filed Under: Product Management

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Ben Yoskovitz

Founding Partner at Highline Beta, a hybrid venture studio and VC firm that works with large, ambitious companies to identify new areas of opportunity through internal and external innovation.

Previously I was VP Product at VarageSale and GoInstant (acq. $CRM), and Founding Partner at Year One Labs.

Angel investments include: Breather, Spoiler Alert, SendWithUs and others.

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