Product Life Cycle

Session 3 of Cohort "Breaking into Product Management 101" by Shravan Tickoo . Sharing key learnings from this very insightful session.

We have a life span; products have a life span too.

What is a Product Life cycle?

Every product goes through different stages of the product life cycle in the market. Each sage has its dynamics and challenges. The 4 phases of the PLC are:

1. Introduction Stage: ?When the product is introduced in the market. An important stage where the stakes are high but does not decide whether the product will be a success or not. At this stage, the companies understand how users respond to the product.Goals: To build high demand and get into the hands of the customer.
2. Growth: At this stage you achieve PMF. The market starts to accept the product, sales begin to grow exponentially. Have a close feedback loop. PMF is dynamic, so discovery is very important at every stage.Goals: ?Strategies to gain market share, and expand customer base. Keep differentiating and discovering to achieve PMF.
3. Maturity – If PMF does not exist anymore, sales are low, prices become competitive and profit margin becomes thinner. Competition becomes intense indicating, the market has begun to reach saturation.Goals: Introduce new features to extend the product’s life. Focus on improving the product layer.
4. Decline: Remember Typewriters? Whose demand declined with the advent of word processors, laptops, Mobiles, etc. At this stage, Sales start to decline due to market saturation, technological advancement, changing customer preferences, or the introduction of a superior product

?What is Problem Space and Solution Space

• Problem Space: Where all needs of the customers reside. Focus on needs, not want. Focusing on ‘Why’ to define ‘What’ of the problem.
• Solution Space: Representation of a product that is used by or intended for use by a customer focusing on Why and for whom.

What is Contextual discovery?

Understanding and uncovering user needs, preferences, and pain points within the context of their everyday experiences. It involves gaining insights into user behaviors, motivations, and challenges.

?E.g.- Building a cooking app, visiting users’ kitchens, knowing how they plan meals, their routine, how they search for recipes, and their cooking steps.

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Zepto- We also discussed a case study on Zepto. ?Sharing key challenges for Zepto to compete:

• Logistics and Ops challenge – Achieving a 10–minute delivery time requires highly efficient logistics and ops.
• Cost Structure- High ops cost impacts the overall viability of the business model.
• Market Dynamics- Niche need, the demand may not be that high and the customer may not pay a premium fee for the service.
• Competition – If the competitor can provide fast delivery with lower operations costs, it may be challenging for Zepto to compete.

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Define the Market segment as per the following:

• Demographic
• Psychographic
• Behavioral Segment
• Needs Based

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Identify Product ideas

• Identify a primary hypothesis
• Test with customers with an existing product
• Understand and note down the benefits
• Find the intersection of the benefits
• Define Top level benefits

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Importance of Needs vs Customer Satisfaction Framework – by Dan Olsen

Dan Oslen in his book Lean Playbook wrote about this framework to assess essential user needs.

• Opportunity: This framework highlights the opportunity where the need is high but customer satisfaction using existing solutions is low.Eg- Jira, if Jira had provided satisfaction there would not be other apps like Trello.
• Competitive: When the need is high, and the satisfaction is also high, the market is competitive. Eg-Airlines industry.
• Not worth going after: Dan also highlights, that when the needs and satisfaction are low, the market is not worth going after.
• Also, when the need is low, but the satisfaction is high, the market is not worth going after. Why build a product when there is no/low need?

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??????ALWAYS BE LOYAL TO THE PROBLEM!

#artandproductmusings #productmanagement #productlifecycle

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