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 […]
Design is Purpose Driven and Solves Problems
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 […]
The Challenge of Changing People’s Behavior
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 […]
Product Managers Stay Until the End
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 […]
Tiny, New, Addictive Behaviors (or How to Build an Awesome Minimum Viable Product)
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 […]
Don’t Squeeze Your Product Managers Into Uselessness
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 […]
A Holistic View of Products and Product Management
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 […]
Moving Towards a Continuous Integration and Deployment Process
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 […]
The Role of Product Managers
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 […]
6 Tips for Implementing Continuous Process Improvement
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 […]
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