Product Management For Hackers

by Brandon Watson on Aug 31, 2009

5,158 views

This is a deck that I presented for the Startup Weekend event which was hosted on the Microsoft campus. http://bizspark.startupweekend.com. ...

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This is a deck that I presented for the Startup Weekend event which was hosted on the Microsoft campus. http://bizspark.startupweekend.com.

It was a great time, and awesome to see so many entrepreneurs and hackers come together and build amazing products in such a short period of time. Even more encouraging was how many people built on top of the .NET stack from Microsoft.

During the weekend, I gave this talk on product management for hackers. I received quite a few requests for the slides, so I annotated them and have posted them for you all to enjoy.

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Product Management For Hackers — Presentation Transcript

Product Management for Hackers
Brandon Watson
Director, Developer Platforms
brwatson@microsoft.com
twitter.com/brandonwatson

What You Need To Know
This will be a fast and furious discussion of Product Management for hackers who are either:
Long on development talent, but short on business acumen
Or think marketing types are idiots =)
All hard data taken from my last company (IMSafer, sold in 2008)
Content adapted from my book in progress:
The Failing Point - www.TheFailingPoint.com
Finally, this isn’t madness:

Do I Have Coding Skills?
Yes, but it’s kind of like…
+
The net result is funny, but you probably don’t want to be in the same room, and cleaning it up could be messy

Under No Circumstances Should You…

Test Your Idea With Only One Person
Most of your friends are probably just like you
Most people are afraid of new things or things that involve risk
$340M sale
Sorry I told you not to do it Jeff…
RT @BrandonWatson Whatever you do, make sure you talk to more than one person about your product/service.

Start Building The First Idea You Have
More than likely you are going to be wrong in the first go round
“I know what I want to say, I just don’t know how to say it.”
Take time and think through your idea to get an optimized result
RT @BrandonWatson It’s very easy to get caught up in designing first and thinking second. Understand the story/needs of your customer.

Not Choose Your Name With Care
By what methods are people going to discover your product? (i.e. search engines)
Is it memorable & does it convey the right message?
RT @BrandonWatson Your name matters – it should be searchable, easy to spell/remember, and think about what URLs customers will type.

Focus Only On The Competition
If you are going to build something, you should be doing it better
A market opportunity means your competitors are missing something – why only copy them?
Taking all the good from all the competitors is seldom the right answer
RT @BrandonWatson Your best ideas will come from your team and your own pain. Innovation seldom comes from copying.

Write Code Before The Press Release
Helps set in your mind who your customers are and what the product does
Too many adjectives and you have nothing
Try writing the influential blog post first instead
RT @BrandonWatson Your best ideas will come from your team and your own pain. Innovation seldom comes from copying.

Worry About Stats “Later”
Raise your hand if you like refactoring code
Raise your hand if you like refactoring database tables
RT @BrandonWatson Stats specific to your application should be a first party citizen. Build them into your product from day 1.

Think AdWords Is All You Need
You can only buy as much traffic as is searching for your product
Find alternatives
RT @BrandonWatsonAdWords will only deliver as much traffic as is search for your product. Find alt. user acquisition sources.

Not Understand Your User Funnel
What does success look like for your business?
How did your customers get to be customers?
Stages allow you to test and tweak, but too many cause unnecessary friction
1,000 User Signups
70% download
50% install
70% monitor an account
245
RevenuableCustomers
$1.67 /User Signup
$3.38 download
$6.76 / successfully install
$9.36 successfully monitor
Revenuable Customers
RT @BrandonWatson Understand your true customer acquisition cost – the cost of getting them to the point where they will pay you.

Start With A Low Price To Attract Customers
Gravity
Free can work, but can you get over the penny gap?
Raising prices is way harder than lowering them
The lower your starting point, the faster the return to that price (i.e. higher gravity)
RT @BrandonWatson The density of price is inversely proportional to the price itself. Raising prices is harder for lower starting prices.
Price

RT @BrandonWatson Knowing the key numbers that run your business will help you spot trouble early.
Not Know Your Business’s “Number”
Most businesses boil down to one or a few numbers
Knowing them allows you to spot trouble early

Signpost Zen
If you enjoyed the show:
Please follow me on Twitter (@brandonwatson)
Check out www.TheFailingPoint.com

Product Management For Hackers

by Brandon Watson on Aug 31, 2009

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Product Management For Hackers — Presentation Transcript