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Product Management for Entrepreneurs

Wan Li ZhuFairhaven CapitalBlog: hacktrend.comMarch 2012

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Product Management

Development• Specifications• Architecture• Programming• Testing/QA

Engineering Customer

Marketing• Product positioning• Channel/sales• Partnerships• Business models

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Part 1:Product Development

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Product Development Lifecycle

Idea

Spec

BuildTest

Feedback

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The Constraints of Software Projects

Features

Speed Quality

Choose 2 of the 3

The winning combo: Quality + Speed (less features) ?

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Waterfall vs. Lean – the oversimplified version

Waterfall Lean

Philosophy Know what you’re doing before you do it. Plan, spec, develop, test, ship.

Don’t know what’s right until market validates it, so throw it out there and iterate fast.

Origin Software on CDs The web 2.0, SaaS

Where Large, old school software companies

Startups

Suitable for Enterprise customers

Consumers

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Waterfall vs. Lean – striking the right balance

• Instead of long specs, aim for high level requirements and more wireframes

• Agile process (i.e. SCRUM, pair programming) + regular triage to manage bugs

• Prototype - test in small user groups to gather feedback and iterate quickly. A/B testing

• Shift more towards a waterfall method when working with an outsourced development shop

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Roles in a Technology Organization

Starting out:• (CTO)• Developer• Outsourced UX

As the company grows:• CTO / VP Product /

Architect• Developer• Designer (UX)• Test (QA)• Operations• Biz-specific roles: User

Education, Community Mgr

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What is a spec?

• Wireframes – storyboards to quickly iterate on features and UI

• Scenario – describes a user with a complex goal performing multiple actions (use cases)

• Use case – a sequence of steps performed by a user that represent features in the software

• Requirements – discrete must-haves that the product must meet

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Spec Example:

• Scenario: Joe is a college student and wants to stay on top of what his friends are up to. He first looks up his friends by their email address, then adds them, and once he’s connected checks regularly for their status updates.

• Use cases– Add friends– Approve friend request– Monitor newsfeed– Comment on newsfeed item

• Requirements– Must be able to look up people by email, by name, by school, etc.– Must be able to add friends (send invite to connect)– Must allow user to approve (or disapprove) of a request to friend– Must allow users to update their status with text, picture, location, etc– Newsfeed must be cached and updated on increments of X minutes– Etc etc

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User Flow Diagram

Quick way to define user experience, get sense of complexity

Forces you to flush out the product logic and flow

Can be created with MS Visio, Lucid Chart (online)

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Storyboard (wireframe)

Search

Google

1. Type in search term 2. Click search

Keep it low-fidelity! Use for brainstorming, debating functionality, UI design iterations

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Spec drives dev, test, marketing

Spec

Dev

Test

Marketing

Architecture / dev designTime/effort estimatesCode + documentation

QA plan / test casesPerformance / scalabilitySecurity

Product demo videoProduct positioningMarketing collateralSupport documentation

ScenariosUse casesFeaturesPrioritizationUX wireframes

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Spec Best Practices

• Stay organized: each scenario contains multiple use cases, each use case contains multiple requirements.

• Prioritize (high, med, low) all scenarios, use cases, and requirements - you will need to cut features to make deadlines. When cutting, keep track of dependencies.

• Other requirements - Don’t forget requirements that are outside of explicit use cases, i.e. security, scalability.

• Outsourced development - More detailed specs. Make sure code is well-documented, ask for developer design docs.

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Bug curve

Time

# of Bugs

Release

Fix/iterate

QA to a point, then release and fix/iterate. SaaS/agile - release earlier and more often.

Enterprise – need a certain level of qualityConsumer – users can do some of the testing, fix rapidly

Track bugs using a system i.e. FogBugz

FeatureComplete

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Suggested Reading

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Part 2:Business Models / Marketing(for Consumer Internet Startups)

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Factors for success in consumer internet• Viral built into product

– Sharing/collaboration is baked into the core use case (photo sharing)

• Value increases with more use– Makes it harder to leave (Dropbox)

• User engagement and repeat use– High # of vectors for engagement (Facebook), universal tool (Google)

• Low user input to value ratio – Minimum friction to get to value

• Distribution/buzz– Partnerships, celebrities, prominent investors

• High value user demographics– Female, teens, wealthy

• Adapting a successful model to new channel/device

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Network effect

Users

Search Traffic

Advertisers(Adwords)

Publishers(Adsense)

Users

User traffic + content

Advertisers Apps

Publishers

VideosUsers

Advertisers

What are the viral loops in your model?

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Go-to-market

• Staging your big vision– Plan for platform but simple features first - consumers can only absorb so

much.

• Multi-sided platforms: Create standalone value first– Focus on the side of the platform that is more desirable (to the other side of

the platform)

• Seed the platform– Trusted networks (i.e. universities)– Aggregate existing content– Recruit content creators

• Price @ free to capture market– Only works if you can monetize through other means (!)– Pricing at free also deters new entrants

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Positioning

• Be careful of “we’re more ____ than _____” and “we do ____ plus a lot more”

• Differentiate/position by…– Vertical– Device/channel (mobile)– Audience– Geography

• Against large incumbents– Misaligned economics– Feature gaps– Too small to move needle

• Type of market affects positioning– Emerging - define– Fragmented/crowded -

aggregate– Mature/declining - disrupt

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Creating and sustaining momentum

• Regular new product launches – Creates PR buzz and educates users

• Viral built into product– Lowers user acquisition cost and sustains PR momentum– OK to explicitly incentivize users to invite others

• Search engine optimized landing pages– Auto-generate content to attract organic search traffic

• Content focus and community development– Flavor of the day/month, popular trends

• Partnerships– Google/Facebook don’t need your 1M users, they need better ways to monetize

existing user base.