Keynote for ISPMA Software Product Summit, Frankfurt, 17 April 2018.

1. Product Leadership:
Lessons from Silicon Valley
Rich Mironov
Software Product Summit
Frankfurt, 17 April 2018

2. 1. Software becoming core to every market,
but timing and economics matter
2. Market validation is our highest leverage
3. Focus on paying customers and end
users, not internal stakeholders
Agenda

3. - Marc Andreessen, 2011
“Software Is
Eating The World”
Mironov/Frankfurt

4. Clocks, cameras, calendars, books,
maps, stereos, GPS, coins,
calculators, groceries, newspapers,
address books, security tokens,
dating, movies, boarding passes,
heart monitors…
Digitization of Consumer Markets

5. • Dynabook (1968 spec)
• GRIDPad (1989)
• GO (1991)
• Apple Newton (1993)
• General Magic (1994)
• Palm Pilot (1996)
• MP3 players (1998)
• Microsoft Pocket PC (2000)
• Microsoft Tablet PC (2002)
After Decades of Failed Mobile Devices

6. • Death of PalmOS, Symbian, Blackberry,
Nokia S40, Windows Mobile, Maemo…
• Invested in software, charged for hardware
• Android drained profit from handsets
Then, Consolidation

7. How to differentiate when
• Rideshare service chooses
nearest car
• No front seat, no controls
• Human drivers less safe
than autonomous cars
Next: Autonomous
Cars
Mironov/Frankfurt

8. • Slowly, then all at once
• “Winner takes most”
• Some bumps along the
way
Timing and Economics Matter

9. “The future is already
here — it's just not very
evenly distributed.”
- William Gibson, 1993

10. • Software economics: build for markets,
not individual customers
• Timing matters
Ø Product management must drive
strategic thinking, not just execution
Silicon Valley Lesson #1

11. 1. Software becoming core to every market,
but timing and economics matter
2. Market validation is our highest leverage
3. Focus on paying customers and end
users, not internal stakeholders
Agenda

12. Customers are experts
at what they want to
achieve, not how to
achieve it.
- Alex Osterwalder
Mironov/Frankfurt

13. There’s nothing more
wasteful than brilliantly
engineering a product
that doesn’t sell.
Mironov/Frankfurt

14. • Users/customers demand
wrong solutions
• Creative process to deeply
understanding real problems
Product Managers Don’t
“Gather Requirements”
Mironov/Frankfurt

15. ü Business cases (1980’s)
ü Cross-functional teams (1990’s)
ü Agile development: more
responsive/more efficient (2000’s)
Ø Clearer problem understanding,
better solutioning (1990’s-2000’s)
• Jobs To Be Done, customer development,
validation, user journeys, design thinking…
Market Validation is Now
Our Primary Leverage
Mironov/Frankfurt

16. Best product managers:
• Get teams to deeply
understand user problems
• Collectively find elegant
solutions
Problem-Framing and Solution Design
are Contact Team Sports
Mironov/Frankfurt

17. • Product +
Design/UX +
Engineering
• Separate from
sales calls
• Every week
We Must Engage Directly with Users

18. • Creative understanding of root issues
• Great problem framing and great
solutioning deliver winning products
Ø Validation takes expertise,
time, investment
Silicon Valley Lesson #2

19. 1. Software becoming core to every market,
but timing and economics matter
2. Market validation is our highest leverage
3. Focus on paying customers and end
users, not internal stakeholders
Agenda

20. unplanned,
deal-driven
20%
DevOps,
quality,
scalability,
security 20%
eng mgmt,
staffing, R&D
10%
planned
features, UX,
revenue drivers
50%
Enterprise SaaS Company’s
Development Budget
Mironov/Frankfurt

21. • “CEO says this is very important.”
• “We promised it to a big prospect.”
• “How hard could this be? Probably only
10 lines of code.”
• “We’ve gone agile, which gives us infinite
capacity...”
• “My neighbor’s kid could do this in an
hour.”
Magical Thinking

22. unplanned,
deal-driven
20%
DevOps,
quality,
scalability,
security 20%
eng mgmt,
staffing, R&D
10%
planned
features, UX,
revenue drivers
50%
Internal Stakeholders
SALES,
MARKETING,
EXECS
ENG, OPS,
SUPPORT,
CUST SUCCESS
SALES

23. • Must set priorities around (paying) customers
• Internal stakeholders are predictably biased
Ø Product leaders need organizational
skills and good analysis
Silicon Valley Lesson #3

24. 1. Need great strategic view and
great product execution
2. Market validation is this decade’s
differentiator
3. Focus on paying customers, not
stakeholders
Takeaways

25. Rich Mironov, CEO
Mironov Consulting
233 Franklin St, Suite #308
San Francisco, CA 94102
RichMironov
@RichMironov
Rich@Mironov.com
+1-650-315-7394