3. @MSS. Content cannot be reproduced
What is Product Management?
Product management is an organisational function within a
company dealing with new product development, business
justification, planning, verification, forecasting, pricing, product
launch, and marketing of a product or products at all stages of
the product lifecycle. Similarly, product lifecycle management
(PLM)[1] integrates people, data, processes and business systems.
11. @MSS. Content cannot be reproduced
Product Manager Responsibilities
• Defines the product vision, strategy and roadmap.
•Gathers, manages, and prioritizes market/customer requirements.
•Customer advocate articulating the user’s and/or buyer’s needs.
•Works closely with engineering, sales, marketing, and support to ensure business case and
customer satisfaction goals are met.
•Has technical product knowledge or specific domain expertise.
•Defines what to solve in the market needs document
•Runs beta and pilot programs during the qualify phase with almost final products and samples.
•Is a market expert. Need market research and competitive analysis skills to complete these tasks.
•Develops the business case for new products, improvements to existing products, and business
ventures.
•Develops positioning for the product.
•Recommends or contributes information in setting product pricing.
13. @MSS. Content cannot be reproduced
Top Skills for Product Managers
Raw intellect
Intellectual curiosity
Strong technical background preferred but not critical
Creativity and passion for problem solving
Ability to speak the language of engineers
Thinking on your feet, writing well, speaking articulately
and motivating people
13
22. @MSS. Content cannot be reproduced
Hard Skills
Shadow or work with a PM(Stretch Projects)
Build your skills
• Case studies
• Product Teardown
• Learning
Build a Product
Find your tribe
Get a Mentor, ask experts
Build your story, start interviewing
Move into a PM role in same company
Move into an existing role that has PMs
Editor's Notes
"In the world of software and technology, the Complete Product Experience (CPE) has seven main components, presented here in a rough order that shows the typical product adoption process. However, the reality is that customers tend to adopt products unpredictably, according to their own tastes and priorities. An organization must be flexible enough to handle multiple adoption paths while staying focused on delivering a high-quality, lovable CPE.“\
1. Marketing is how potential customers learn about your product and determine if it might be a fit to help them solve their problem. This is taking on new forms as people grow increasingly connected: social platforms, online reviews, and company-published content.
2. Sales is the process of prospects learning more about the product from a company representative and possibly using it in a trial. They educate themselves about the product and get the information they need to determine if the solution is right for them.
3. Technology refers to the core set of features that customers pay for. In our case, that is the online software that they log into our servers to use. For others, it could be the actual phone, credit card, or even an insurance policy that is purchased. However, technology should represent not the end of a transaction but the beginning of a transparent, interactive relationship.
4. Supporting systems make it possible to deliver the product. These are internal systems that the customer rarely sees but which can have a huge impact on their overall happiness: billing, provisioning, analytics, and more. For example, if you call customer support and the representative always seems to have a comprehensive history of your purchases and support issues at their fingertips, you can thank supporting systems.
5. Third-party integrations enable new products to fit into how the customer already lives and works. All products exist in an ecosystem, so they have to play nice with the other products the customer is already using and the way that customer already works.
6. Support is everything from answering customer questions to training and even helping customers integrate your product with their existing systems. Support describes all activity that helps the customer achieve something meaningful with a product.
7. Policies are the rules that companies set to govern how they do business. At their best, they provide a framework for employees to be their best. At their worst, they create unresolvable frustration that drives customers to ask “to speak with the manager.”
Core skills for a PM
Core skills for a PM
Core skills for a PM
Core skills for a PM
The product adoption curve is a standard model that reflects who buys your products and when.
Think of it as the big picture view of your product adoption. It takes the product lifecycle and considers what happens at different points.
Here's what a product adoption curve looks like:
Like I mentioned, this curve shows you who buys your products and when. (You can even get some insight into why.)
In most product adoption models, there are five distinct stages. Each stage represents an arbitrary amount of time, so what’s most important here is the process as a whole.
Now let’s break this down step by step, stage by stage.
Stage 1. Innovators
The innovators are the first group of people to invest in your product.
This is a unique group . People who buy super early are usually obsessed with SaaS and want to keep up with the cutting edge of SaaS technology.
Primary motivation: Learn about new technologies for their own sake
Key characteristics:
Strong aptitude for technical information
Like to alpha test new products
Can ignore any missing elements
Do whatever they can to help
Challenges:
Want unrestricted access to top technical people
Want no-profit pricing
Key role: Gatekeeper to the Early adopter
However, this group can have lots of variety in terms of specific customer types. For example, maybe someone just really needed your exact product.
What’s most important about this group is its size. You might have noticed that it’s small. That’s completely normal.
This is why you might only get a few sales immediately after you launch. You’ll typically get about 2.5% of your total sales from innovators.
Of course, this isn’t always the case.
You might have a higher percentage of innovators if your marketing went really well and reached a wide audience.
Or you might have a lower percentage of innovators if you’re relatively unknown in your niche.
So use the 2.5% as a benchmark, but remember it’s not true for everyone.
Stage 2. Early Adopters
At some point, you’ll see a swell in sales, and you’ll start to get a steadier conversion rate.
This is probably because the early adopters have arrived.
Like innovators, early adopters tend to be ahead of everyone else, willing to test the waters.
Primary motivation - Gain dramatic competitive advantage via revolutionary breakthrough
Key characteristics
Great imaginations for strategic applications
Attracted by high-risk, high-reward propositions
Will help supply the missing elements
Perceive order-of-magnitude gains - so not price sensitive
Challenges
Want rapid time-to-market
Demand high degree of customisation and support
Key role - fund the development of the early market
Although early adopters are similar to innovators, there are some important differences.
It could be the case that early adopters have purposely waited to buy your product.
Whereas innovators are fine with rushing in and testing out something new, early adopters are a bit more hesitant. They still want to try something new, but they want a few reviews to consult.
Then again, it could be the case that they just found out about your product.
Expect your percentage of adoption to go up to about 13.5% or so.
Stage 3. Early Majority
Here’s when your product really gets some momentum going.
You’ve got a good amount of sales from innovators and early adopters. At this point, usually an even larger group sweeps in and gives you a heck of a lot more sales. Specifically, about 34%.
The people in the early majority are usually pragmatic and will only buy something once it’s been road-tested (at least a little bit) and has proven its value.
Primary motivation
Gain sustainable productivity improvements via evolutionary change
Key characterists
Astute managers of mission-critical applications
Understand real-world issues and tradeoffs
Focus on proven applications
Life to go with the market leader
Challenges
Insists on good references from trusted colleagues
Want to see the solution in production at the refernce site
Key role
Bulwark of the mainstream market
This is the beginning of your product’s peak. Maybe it’s gained traction with more marketing or word of mouth.
Stage 4. Late Majority
At stage 4, your product has been out for a while, and there’s widespread use.
However, there are still some people who are a bit skeptical of your product. Once they’ve put their worries to rest, they buy your product, and these people are usually in the late majority or laggards.
Primary motivation
Just stay even with the competition
Avoid competitive disadvantage
Key characterists
Better with people than technology
Risk averse
Price-sensitive
Highly reliant on a single, trusted advisor
Challenges
Need completely pre-assembled solutions
World benefit from value-added services but do not want to pay for them
Key role - Extend product life cycles
At some point during the early or late majority phase, you’ll have your peak where you get more sales than ever, and your product is at the height of its popularity.
Interestingly, in terms of adoption rates, the early and late majorities are usually roughly equal, around 34%.
Stage 5. Laggards
These are the people who buy your product after all the hype has died down. Sometimes, laggards purchase a product years after it’s been released.
Laggards might be extreme skeptics or people who have only heard about your product a long time after you launched it. Whatever the reason, these people don’t buy until much later in the product lifecycle.
Primary motivation
Maintain status-quo
Key characteristics
Good at debunking marketing hype
Disbelieve productivity-improvement arguments
Believe in the law of unintended consequences
Like taking a contrarian position
Seek to block purchases of new technology
Challenges
Not a customer
Can be formidable opposition to early adoption
Key role
Not a customer
Can be formidable opposition to early adoption
Surprisingly, this is a pretty big group. 16% of your product adoption will come from laggards.
Try to wrap your head around the fact that laggards have a higher adoption rate than early adopters.
Weird, right?
We’re going to dive into why that happens as well as a few other ways you can hack the product adoption curve.
-------
Here are three strategies you can use.
1. Change Your Marketing as Your Product Ages
At each stage of the product adoption curve, it’s likely there’s going to be certain demographics buying your product.
For example, innovators are more likely to buy on impulse, while buyers in the late majority will do lots of research before purchasing.
Each group has its own traits
Slide 7
