MassTLC's Mastering Product Innovation Summit played host to a product management discussion on to build or not to build

1. October 9, 2014
MassTLC Mastering Product Innovation Summit
To build or not to build, that is the question…

2. 2
Our Facilitators
•Greg Nicastro, EVP Product Development—Veracode
-30+ years in tech—yikes!
-BigCos—Digital, Sun, Iron Mountain
-LittleCos—Predictive Systems, Connected, MyPerfectGig
-Roles—Product Mgmt, Development, GM, CEO
•Apparao Karri, Director of Product Management—NetProspex
-15+ years in tech (Yes, I have seen the dot com bubble)
-Experience with Small Companies and Start Ups : NetProspex, Avention
-Roles: Architect, Project Management, Product Management, Sales Engineering

3. 3
Greg’s thoughts
•Dope Slap--are you trying to solve a “worthwhile” problem?
•Craig Stull/Pragmatic Marketing team’s general definition
Urgency—how urgent is the problem that the product solves?
Pervasiveness—how many companies and or consumers have the problem?
“Bankability”—how much are these business or consumers willing to spend to solve the problem and what makes you think so?

4. 4
Apparao’sthoughts
A few more points to add to Greg’s list:
•Is it your core competency ? How qualified are you to solve the problem?
•Is it a feature Or a product ?
•Is your solution better than current alternatives / competition ?
•Will your product be obsolete due to tech evolution ?
If the answer to these questions is YES…then
•Deliver as a service and validate if solving the problem truly produces the level of impact you are expecting
•Build an MVP

5. 5
“Rantworthy…”
•XYZ Corporation is willing to provide NRE for this capability—how to think about NRE?
•Build, Buy, Partner---how do you think about it?
•Timing—only bleeding edge folks that really “get it” are willing to spend either time or money today, but in time…every organization and/or person will want this…
•New Industry / Market Segment –Have your built a new product that crossed the boundaries of who you were originally serving?
•Examples of products that were caught off guard and got cannibalized due to tech evolution ?