1.
Joseph Bou-Younes
@josephby
500px.com/josephby
VP Product
500px Inc.
Metric-Driven Product Management

2.
Enable and reward visual
creativity for everyone.
Our Mission

3.
• Premier photography community
• Global brand synonymous with excellence in photography
• Industry renowned user experience and design aesthetic
• Founded in 2009 in Toronto
• Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Harrison Metal, and ffVC
6M
60M
260M
1.5B+
registered
users
photos
uploaded
monthly
pg views
monthly
API req.
History and Highlights

4.
1. Set your strategy
2. Choose a metric
3. Forecast
4. Go go go!

5.
1. Strategy
2. Prioritization
3. Execution
What Product Managers People Do:
http://blog.adamnash.com/2011/12/16/be-a-great-product-leader/

6.
1. What game are we playing?
2. How do we keep score?
Strategy
http://blog.adamnash.com/2011/12/16/be-a-great-product-leader/

7.
Given our mission to enable and reward visual creativity for everyone,
we will:
1. Achieve our mission in a world where people predominantly create,
consume, and manage content on mobile devices.
2. Provide the best photo consumption, discussion, and licensing
experience for well shot, well-edited, authentic work.
Strategy (Example)

8.
Value and Valuation
Consumer technology companies create value by generating
sustainable growth, reach, and engagement in a differentiated way.

9.
2000
Google GoTo.com

10.
Strategy + Value Drivers
Metrics to Forecast

11.
1. Achieve our mission in a world where
people predominantly create, consume,
and manage content on mobile devices.
2. Provide the best photo consumption,
discussion, and licensing experience for
well shot, well-edited, authentic work.
Metrics to Forecast
App Installs
Photo Uploads

12.
Remember:
- choose simple leading indicators
- tell a story
- show your work
- give yourself time
Example: App Installs
Baseline 10,000 installs/day
External Factors Seasonality (summer is slow) - 5%
Impact of Feature
Analogous features; PR; App Store
featured
+ 20%
Forecast 11,500 installs/day

13.
1. Set your strategy
2. Choose a metric
3. Forecast
4. Go go go!

14.
WARNING
This is hard.

15.
“The narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at
sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or,
equivalently, forcing a logical link, an arrow of relationship upon
them. Explanations bind facts together. They make them all the
more easily remembered; they help them make more sense. Where
this propensity can go wrong is when it increases our impression
of understanding.”
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan

16.
Mitigation Strategies
Problem Implication Mitigation
Data not easily accessible
Lots of time wasted to get data; lack
of data literacy across organization
Standardize on “good enough” tool;
train and evangelize
Product managers ship things
Measurement gets lost in favor of
lines of code deployed
Reinforce KPIs at every step of
development process
Not every feature will move a needle
CEO: “Did that feature help?”
Me: _( )_/¯
Find intermediate measurable steps
where possible; if not, focus on
horizon
More time on prioritization & strategy
→ less time for execution
Thrashing during development
Hire right, share feature ownership
with design and technology teams,
have a dedicated project manager

17.
This is hard.
But you can do it!

18.
We’re Hiring! (500px.com/jobs)
• Android and iOS Developers
• Data Engineer
• DevOps Engineer
• Design
• Project Manager (PMP)
• Product Managers
• RoR Developers
• Sales (Enterprise & Inside)
THANK YOU!
Get in touch!
• Sign up for 500px, follow me
(500px.com/josephby) and
upload something!
• Follow me on twitter
@josephby for lots of related
material I will share
tomorrow
• Email: joseph@500px.com

19.
Questions?

20.
Links
• Adam Nash, Wealthfront, "Be a Great Product Leader"
• Zal Bilimoria, a16z, "Product Management 101"
• Ben Horowitz, a16z, “Good Product Manager / Bad Product Manager”
Books
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
• Zero to One by Peter Thiel
• Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Please tweet suggestions at me @josephby.
Further Reading