Presenter: Rodan Zadeh Product Strategy is a balancing act between creation of products which are valued by customers, delivering market-fit and capturing value created by these products. This session will introduce key components of product strategy intended for product owners and is based on Lean Startup concept. Key frameworks and strategies that have propelled entrepreneurial success will be discussed. Rodan Zadeh is the instructor and developer of product strategy curriculum taught to entrepreneurs at his company's incubator. A graduate of MIT Sloan, Rodan has devoted over 20 years in delivering innovative products to high tech industries. He has led entrepreneurial teams in small startups and fortune 100 organizations. With this experience, Rodan brings a special perspective on management of innovations to entrepreneurs. He lives in Boston with his wife and kids.

1. Lean, Not Mean, Product Strategies
for Entrepreneurs
Rodan Zadeh
@rodanz
June 10, 2017

2. “If you don’t know where
you are going, any road will
get you there.”
• -- Lewis Carroll

3. Agenda
Introduction
Common traits of (successful) startups
What is product strategy
Introduction to Lean business methods
Lean canvas
BML
Value vs. Pain
Markets and Growth Engine
Pricing & Packaging

4. About me
Fun facts: Had a science lab at age 9, ran a small business at 12
Experience
• 6 Startups – Strategy Roles
• Board of Directors – Insight Photonics, Acadia Consulting
• Product Marketing – Dell/EMC
• Product Management – Lucent/Alcatel
• Engineer – ITT Gilfillan, GM/Delphi, OCP
Education
• MS in Technology Management
• BS in Electrical Engineering / Information Technologies
• ITIL, Cloud Architect, Product Management, Marketing, etc.

5. What is Product Strategy and why it matters?
• Product Strategy is a process to understand how, why, when
and where to engage with targeted prospective customers.
• Importance of Product Strategy to your startup:
• Time is a limited resource
• Need to know what are you selling
• Define the market you are selling to
• Understand ways to reach your target market

6. The Lean Startup ideology
What do you REALLY need to know?
• Do customers recognize they have the problem
that you are trying to solve?
• If there was a solution, would they buy it?
• Would they buy it from you?
• Can you build the solution?

7. Innovators use business models to sketch out quick
and dirty conceptual
prototypes of a business around
the product (not just the product
itself) in a format that is generally
understandable and generates
dialogue with others.

8. Framework – Lean Canvas
Value Proposition
(Product or Service)
Customers
Channels
Revenues
Costs
Key Partners,
Activities, Resources

9. Build, Measure, Learn
Blank
Ries
Maurya

10. Building an MVP

11. Key elements of any venture
Focus is on ’value’
Product
How to
create
value
Revenue
How to
capture
value
Market
How to
deliver
value
Pain

12. Research should identify risks
• Customer risk:
Who has the pain? (Customer segments)
• Is this a viable customer segment?
• Product risk:
What are you solving? (Problem)
• How do customers rank the top three problems?
• Market risk:
Who is the competition? (Existing alternatives)
• How do customers solve these problems today?

13. Source: Maurya, Ash – Scaling Lean
http://www.playinglean.com/blogs/playing-lean-blog/116360579-ama-with-ash-maurya
Source: Eric Ries. “The Lean Startup”, Chapter 9
STICKY
Use of the product/service
drives continued use
ex. Gmail by Google
RevenueAcquisition Activation
Lean engines of growth
PAID
Growth through paid-for
advertising
ex. Coke
Referral
REFERRAL
One new user (virally) leads
to more than one additional
new user
ex: LinkedIn

14. Product Price
Cost of Goods Sold
Perceived Value
Objective Value
Client’s Incentive to Purchase =
[Perceived Value – Price]
Your Incentive to Sell =
[Price – COGS]
Marketing
Efforts
Price of
Substitutes
Pricing framework: perception drives
value & value drives price
Financial
objectives
•Seek profit
•Cover costs
Market
objectives
•Expand and
keep user
base
•Build market
share
𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 =
𝐺𝑎𝑖𝑛
𝑃𝑎𝑖𝑛

15. Lean Startup Summary
• Businesses fail because THEY DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH CUSTOMERS
• A startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable
BUSINESS MODEL (ITERATIONS)
• Startups that don’t iterate (PIVOT) fast enough fail
• There are NO facts inside your building, so get outside and find them
• Create & TEST the business MODEL first, business plan & business will follow
Experimenting to reduce the time between iterations
(pivots) will increase odds of success before funding runs out

16. @rodanz
Thanks