Be a Great
Product
Leader
Adam Nash, VP of Product & Growth,
@Dropbox, @adamnash

“There’s a thin line
between being a hero
and being a memory.”

World Class Product
• This all started with a conversation I had with Reid
Hoffman in 2007.
• Most people start or join new companies because they
think “we can do better this time.” They come to build a
company.
• These are the top lessons I’ve personally gained over the
past two decades about product management for
modern consumer software.

Prioritization: Three Buckets
• Metrics Movers
These pay the bills. In the end, software that doesn’t
justify itself will lose the ability to fund itself.
• Customer Requests
If you don’t listen to customers, they will lose faith and
eventually hate you.
• Delight
If you don’t delight customers, you won’t inspire passion
and loyalty in your users.

It’s About the Whole Product
• Can’t we find features that have all three? No.
• Metrics movers are rarely requested or delightful.
• Customer requests rarely move metrics or delight people.
• Delight features rarely move metrics & by definition, are
not requested.
• Great products, however, combine all three.

Find the Heat
• There are two ways to boost engagement: lower friction
or increasing desire.
• Software teams love to focus on the first, and rarely dive
into the second.
• Exceptional experiences depend on capturing the real
nuances of human interaction.

Don’t Be Afraid to Talk
About Emotion
• Heat is a placeholder term for emotions that drive action,
both positive and negative. Emotion. Passion. Desire.
• What strong emotions drive the actions in your products?
• Look for “Magic Moments.”

Simple is Hard
• It’s true in design, metrics, prioritization, and strategy.
• We all fear the fate of Microsoft Office.
• What’s the one thing you want the user to do?
• What’s the job your customers are hiring you to do?
• The great gift of mobile-first design.

Einstein’s Razor
• Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Dropbox
Spaces
• Dropbox Spaces is the
evolution of the shared
folder, an experience
that brings the “smart
workspace” to life

Dropbox
Spaces
• Dropbox users value
the simplicity of the
service

Dropbox
Spaces
• Spaces allows
Dropbox to bring new
features to the
foreground, revealed
elegantly when users
add metadata to a
folder

• Software teams tend to focus
extensively on their users.
• They spend increasingly little time
on people who don’t use their
products.
Obsess About
Your Non-Users

• You have more non-users than
users.
• Your brand is often determined by
the way your product touches
non-users.
Growth Comes
from Your
Non-Users

• Common Product Questions:
• Should we build this?
• When should we build this?
• How should should we build this?
Solve the
Product Maze
Backwards
• Teams will debate “should” when
the question really is “when.”

• Thinking backwards from the
future helps.
• Visualize success in five years. If
you have the feature at that point,
you are just debating when.
• Debating when is critical, but it
tends to be a more objective
discussion than “if.”
Think Backwards
from the Future

Know Your Superpower
• Software is a team sport.
• Each function brings something critical & deserves respect.
• Every function has a superpower when it comes to decisions.
• Product - the power to frame the discussion w/ strategy & metrics.
• Design - the power of visualization of possible choices.
• Engineering - the power to show what is possible.
• These powers require hard work & specialization.

Final Thoughts
We can be our own
harshest critics.
Products are never
done.
Behavior matters.
Values matter.
We are always learning,
and our customers are
always changing.

Be a Great
Product Leader

“Fate rarely calls upon us
at a moment
of our choosing.”