4 Things I Learned at Mind the Product 2018

Mind the Product is one of my favorite conferences to attend every year. This past conference in San Francisco was my third year attending and each time I go, I remember why it’s so refreshing to be around so many like-minded people. To be able to listen to amazing speakers who are at the top of the product industry is really invigorating and gets you thinking. So I’ve let everything digest over the past month and here’s what spoke to me the most…

1. How do you find product-market fit?

Dan Olsen is one of the best product speakers that I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. I remember being in his workshop during the 2017 conference, and he asked the class, “How do you know when you’ve found product-market fit?” There were a lot of answers thrown out… from sales booking numbers, to units sold, to monthly users. I remember when I went back to Miami, I asked my coworkers the same question. I got a similar set of responses. As a product manager, one of my largest concerns should be making sure that my product finds product-market fit. And according to Olsen, product-market fit is found when you have YoY recurring revenue. Which, when you really think about it, makes perfect sense. If your users are willing to pay for your product again next year, or next month, then yes -- you’ve found product-market fit. It means they need your product.

Olsen made a great point during this talk that most product teams focus too much on user experience and feature sets, when more time is required to focus on the target customer and the underserved needs. In its most basic form -- how can we build a solution without really knowing the problem? We should be spending a greater majority of our time on understanding the problem and how our potential customers can benefit from our solution.

The key to finding product-market fit is making sure to create a winning value proposition:

1. Don’t compete on must-haves. It doesn’t make sense to compete against another product for a feature that’s a given.
2. You need to be the best on at least one performance benefit. Even if the performance benefit is a staple in competitor products, you need to be the best at one of them.
3. It’s ideal to also have a unique delighter. A unique differentiator can help tip the scales.

The example Olsen used is Instagram. Instagram’s tagline is, “Fast, beautiful photo sharing.”

Instagram didn’t compete on the ability to share a picture -- that’s a given considering that they’re a photo sharing application. But Instagram uploads photos quickly, unlike many other photo sharing apps. This is their performance benefit. Instagram also forced us to have square photos, an aspect ratio that looks much better and which they consider a delighter, or a unique identifier. All of Instagram’s value props are in their tagline.

An outperforming benefit plus a delighter is a very powerful combo. It’s not easy to accomplish, and neither is product-market fit.

2. What’s a roadmap?

This was probably my favorite topic of the day. The title of the talk was, “Roadmaps are dead! Long live roadmaps!” That made me laugh. I do think as product managers, our lives are kind of run by roadmaps. And they shouldn’t be! C. Todd Lombardo talked about how roadmaps are not a release plan and not a list of features or dates. Sometimes I feel as though that’s exactly what roadmaps are.

What Lombardo eloquently pointed out is that roadmaps should be outcomes that include a product vision, business objectives, timeframes, and themes. I think a lot of times, at least in my experience, it’s much easier to say, “Here is the roadmap for the next year…” and then list a large group of features. Don’t get me wrong, this excites stakeholders. Sales teams, management, and customers alike like to see a long list of features that will be developed into the product. But what does this really accomplish?

I’m making it a point to present roadmaps to stakeholders that rally around a theme and a goal, as opposed to a grouping or list of features. Roadmaps should be a strategic communication tool that also acts as a statement of intent as to where we’re going -- even if there are several means. A roadmap is really how you will realize your product vision. Moving forward, and thanks in large part to Mr. Lombardo, my product roadmaps are going to consist of the following. First, an explanation of my product vision. I have to ask myself, how will the future world benefit from my product when it’s fully realized? And just as importantly, does this vision align with my company’s overall vision? Second, what are my product’s business objectives? What is my product going to accomplish and how? Third, and everyone’s favorite, timeframes. When will these things be delivered? Fourth, themes. Themes are an organization of work-areas for the product focused on problems and needs. Again, not a list of or a grouping of features, but rather problems and needs. We need to act as if we’re children and ask why, then ask why again, and continue asking why until we fully understand the problem and the need. And finally, a disclaimer: as always, change in a roadmap is possible and likely. So expect it!

The other great point that Lombardo made was the importance of getting stakeholder feedback on the potential roadmap. I find this to be incredibly important and make sure before any large feature makes it on the roadmap, that it has buy-in from all interested parties to make sure that the product vision is owned by the whole company, as opposed to a myopic product vision that’s owned only by the product owner.

3. Who owns innovation?

The first thing Brant Cooper asked to kick off his talk was, “What does innovation mean and who owns it?” I loved hearing this question because I’ve never really thought about who owns innovation. Does it belong to the strategy department? Marketing? Engineering? Who really owns innovation at technology companies? And where is our place as product managers?

The fascinating thing is that innovation has no one owner. Innovation is really about uncertainty and how to tackle it. Normal “horizon planning,” as Cooper calls it, consists of:

• Horizon 1: incremental improvement of existing product(s)
• Horizon 2: innovative ideas that won’t see fruit for several years
• Horizon 3: breakthrough innovation

This makes sense when you think of a typical product company. However, Cooper challenges us to think about a new horizon framework:

• Horizon 0: core process reinvention from normal business stakeholders (HR, Finance, etc.)
• Horizon 1: continued improvement
• Horizon 2: new growth (launching existing products to a new market, launching in a new country, etc.)
• Horizon 3: non-linear growth (invest money where we’re short)

Today, companies are formed by skills by trade. In other words, this person lives in Operations, whereas this other person lives in Marketing, etc. The very nature of this mentality is what makes us slow and unable to change processes quickly. The example Cooper used was Spotify. Spotify has “guilds” and guilds are based on a function, such as a marketing guild, a sales guild, etc. So far, so similar. But what Spotify does is form teams across guilds and then assign teams to a mission. A mission could be something like, increasing average daily engagements/users. This is their recipe for success.

Being cross-functional is not just adding a marketing person to your product development team, but finding all of the people you need in order to move the needle. Innovation isn’t just about that non-linear growth (Horizon 3), but making sure that everything is working in tandem in order to achieve that non-linear growth. Because you cannot try and reach Horizon 3 without your core product teams taking care of Horizons 1 and 2.

4. How do you build an enduring product?

One of the things I think we need to place more focus on as product managers is maximizing our chances of building an enduring product. Sarah Tavel’s talk reminded me a bit of Dan Olsen’s regarding product-market fit, but Tavel’s was focused more on the hierarchy of engagement.

1. Growing engaged users

Although it’s hard to relate to apps like Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, and YouTube when working in the healthcare B2B industry, I was actually able to pull some key points out of Tavel's talk. Tavel talked about the core action of every product and how the core action is the action that forms the foundation of your product. For example, for Facebook, the core action is friending. For Pinterest, it’s pinning. For Snapchat, it’s snapping. Most often, the core action is the action most correlated with retention. The core action isn’t the only action; other features support the core action. But the ultimate goal is getting people to form the core action.

“Growing users without growing users completing the core action is the empty calories of growth.”

It feels good but it’s not doing good for the product.

2. Retaining users

We need our users to feel either accruing benefits from our products or mounting loss. They need to feel, the more I use the product, the better it gets. Or, the more I use the product, the more I’d have to lose if I left the product. A great example Tavel used is Evernote. The core action for Evernote is creating a note. The more notes added, the more value received and the harder it is to leave. The core action then creates accruing benefits and mounting loss.

A lot of apps out there focus on the first level of hierarchy (growing engaged users) but not necessary the second (retaining users).

3. Self-perpetuating

Self-perpetuating is not an easy state to come by. The strongest virtuous loop is the network effect, where our users are doing the work for us. Once this opportunity is found, it needs to be maximized. Virtuous loops propel a company forward. The example Tavel noted was Tinder. Tinder has some virtuous loops because once a match is made, a notification is then sent, and it reengages the user with the app again. But the most important one -- a successful date -- is an off-ramp, not an engagement accelerator. This just shows it’s not easy to be self-perpetuating.

It really makes you take a step back to think about your own products, which is what I’ve been doing over the past month. Digesting the information I’ve learned from the conference and attempting to utilize the important themes is a great way to move forward as a product manager, to move our products forward, and our companies along with it.

So thank you to all the speakers and see you all next year!