that thing you forget to do: lessons in product development, management & marketing

That Thing You Forget to DoLessons on Product Development,

Management & Marketing

Bernard Leong

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If you have 64 days left, you should spend 30 days for product development & 30 days for testing, feedback & raise money ...

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Let’s start with two buildings in Orchard Road, Singapore

313@Somerset Orchard Central

What are your experiences in navigating within the building?

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In a nutshell

How do you build a product? Product Development:Features, Content & Help

How do you measure a product?Product Management: Getting the right set of metrics from customers

How do you market a product? Product Marketing: Getting users & Managing media

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Questions from Founders• Who should decide the final product if founders

differ from vision?

• When is the time that we can say “the product is ready for launch!”?

• How do we get publicity and distribution of our website/app or any product?

• How do we resolve conflicts on product within the team?

• Should you build on adequate or great open source technologies?

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Planning without Execution is a pipe dream. Execution without Planning is waste of effort & time.

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Product RoadmapMinimum Viable

Product

What you can build within

30-60 days?

What is the ideal product you will like to

have?

Infinity

The ideal product does

not exists

What you can build with an

initial investment & some

customers

What you can build with more

investments & more customers

(includes feedback)

Beta Product Iterated Productfor customers

TimeDay 0

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Product Development8

How do you decide features?

• Alignment with the user objectives - Is your product solving the problem you state?

• Less is more: How many extra features which you can cut for now?

• Can a user figure the product out without much education?

Kano Model

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Is UI/UX a science?

Check out this video: http://youtu.be/iVFTBj_BYy0

Wireframes Screen Sizes (Mobile/Web)

Colors, Fonts, Icons, Buttons & ... Actions, Events & Analytics

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Product Management11

Measure data but find the killer metric that addresses virality & potential /real revenues.(the one you pitched to investors)

How many downloads, users, impressions?

(Vanity)

How many monthly active users performing actions with your app or website?

Construct metrics, on how many

actions per user or how much time user

spend and benchmark against

known metrics.

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Day Product Development

Product Management

Product Marketing

10 Build feature 1 & 2 Test trial for feature 1 & 2Figure out where

your customers get the product.

20 Build feature 3 & 4Test trial for feature 3 & 4Prepare seeded content

Figure out how to educate usersPrepare the setup for the distribution

30 Prototype ready for testing

Get users to try the complete prototype & see what they thinks

Prepare and starts sending invites to

alpha or beta users

Let everyone knows the plan and start your execution. Do keep each other in check.

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Product Marketing14

Distribution & PR:2 different issues for product marketing

Distribution: How do customers access or buy your products?

PR: How do customers hear of your products?

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Product Marketing: Distribution• What is the platform do you

distribute your product?

• What is the delivery process of your product? An app store or a SaaS provider?

• How easy can a customer access your service?

• How accessible are your partners with customers?

• Firehose Strategy: Should we open it up as an API?

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Product Marketing: PR• How should you engage the

press from bloggers to journalists?

• What are the things that the team should or should not share?

• What are your own channels or marketing? Social Media?

• How do you respond if the press turns against your company?

• PR is about enhancing the company’s image & hoping that more customers use your product.

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Align your product releases & launches & business objectives to your media strategy

Months Product Milestones

What’s the story?

Media Channels

1Product Launch &

beta launch in local market

How does your product solve the

problem? Social Media Sites

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Release version 2.0 with feature X & expand to three

markets

What’s the new thing that will improve the experience of your

customers?

Social Media SitesPrinted Media

6Compile, Classify &

Analyze data coming from the product

An insight about the behavior of

customers about your product

Social Media Sites, Printed Media Radio or TV

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References• Smashing Magazine: http://www.smashingmagazine.com

• Presentation Zen: http://www.presentationzen.com

• Mobile UI Patterns: http://mobile-patterns.com/ or Pttrns: http://pttrns.com/

• Color Palettes: http://thedesignmag.com/27-color-tools-and-resource-for-choosing-the-right-color-palette.html

• Kano Model, Agile Software Methodology

• Eric Rees, “The Lean Start-up”

• Jeffrey Moore, “Crossing the Chasm”

• Project Management Tools: Pivotal Tracker, Basecamp or Asana?

• FrameThink, “The Four Viral Objectives: http://framethink.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/the-four-viral-app-objectives-aka-social-network-application-virality-101/

Contact: bleongcw@gmail.com19