BoSON22 | Rich Mironov | Resolving Incompatible World Views - Slides.pdf

1. BoS Product Day:
Incompatible World Views
Rich Mironov
Business of Software
12 October 2022

2. • Software product management since 1988
• Product leader since 1991
• 8 full-time leadership roles (VP, CPO, CEO)
• 6 Silicon Valley startups
• 13 interim VP Product (“smokejumper”) roles
• Writer, mentor, organizational thinker
• Founded Product Camp
About Rich
@RichMironov @BoSConference

3. • Focus on individual customers/deals: one at a time
• WHO: Enterprise Sales, Implementation and Support Teams
• Measured on deal revenue, fastest implementation/fix
• Focus on aggregate impact of features and system
• WHO: Enterprise Product, Engineering and Design
• Measured on -ilities, total adoption, company revenue, time-to-value
• Different metrics, considerations, timeframes
Two Fundamentally Different Viewpoints
@RichMironov @BoSConference

4. • Enterprise Sales
• Independent transactions: close then move on
• Fit product to customer, expect unique requests
• Customers know (say) what they need
• Enterprise Implementation
• Standard product is rarely complete enough
• Find fastest path to production system
• On completion, move to next project
(software will keep working)
Sequential, Separable, Completable
@RichMironov @BoSConference

5. • “No white space/slack in Engineering”
• “Less important than already committed/
announced roadmap items”
• “The product wasn’t designed to do that”
• “It probably won’t work /
customers will be unhappy later”
• “Incurs major technical debt”
• “We have to support that forever”
Arguments That We Usually Ignore
@RichMironov @BoSConference

6. • Product
• Always-limited engineering: address largest number of customers/users
• Faster company-wide revenue velocity vs. single deals
• Every one-off or special displaces planned features
• Customers usually misunderstand problems/solutions
• Engineering/Design
• Every new feature increases supported code base,
makes app more complexity, reduces ease of use
• No product is ever “finished:” must support forever
• Architectures designed for specific purposes
Continuous, Cumulative, Long-Lived
@RichMironov @BoSConference

7. • “This is a huge revenue opportunity”
• “There are lots of other customers who will want this”
• “It can’t be that hard to implement /
We can put it into next week’s sprint”
• “We can solve with special pricing”
• “They won’t really use that feature”
• “We won’t need ongoing support"
Arguments That We Usually Ignore
@RichMironov @BoSConference

8. • Frictionless, turnkey SaaS worth 6x-15x revenue
• Priced for customer-perceived value (not cost)
• “Build once, sell many” with >90% margins
• As few touches as possible, no specials
• Professional services/custom dev’t worth <1x revenue
• Eventually compete on cost
• Need continuing stream of projects
• Little actual re-use across teams, projects
Investor View
@RichMironov @BoSConference

9. (B2B) Software Investment Portfolio
@RichMironov @BoSConference

10. • Fundamental challenge for B2B/enterprise SaaS
• Often (quietly) shouting past each other
• Not usually about individuals or personalities
• Long-term doesn’t bite you – until it does
• Cost of “specials” skyrockets after customer #5
• Need C-level process with long-term
scorekeeping (not owned by Sales)
• Only way to influence Sales behavior is via Sales comp
• Product companies should tightly partner
with service companies
Takeaways
@RichMironov @BoSConference

11. Rich Mironov
Mironov Consulting
www.mironov.com
+1-650-315-7394
rich@mironov.com
@richmironov

12. • Account View vs. Segment View
• Breakout Sessions
• What Did We Learn/Observe?
Breakout Session
@RichMironov @BoSConference

13. • If you self-identify as account-focused…
• Sales, Implementation, Support, maybe Acct-Based Marketing, CEO
• Assigned to Group 1 / Script 1
• Link in chat window
• If you self-identify as cumulative focus
• Product Management, Engineering, Growth Marketing, maybe Finance
• Assigned to Group 2 / Script 2
• Link in chat window
• Pair discussions: 10 minutes to agree on a recommendation
Sorting Ourselves for Breakouts
@RichMironov @BoSConference

14. • Who got to an agreement?
• What did you notice?
• Similar conversations at your company?
How are they resolved?
• Takeaways?
Sharing
@RichMironov @BoSConference

15. “Everyone sees the
world this way”
-or-
Where you stand depends
on where you sit
@RichMironov @BoSConference

16. Rich Mironov
Mironov Consulting
www.mironov.com
+1-650-315-7394
rich@mironov.com
@richmironov