Rinat Keinan provides their personal introduction and background. They then discuss three challenges they faced in their career in marketing and product management. For each challenge, they analyzed the situation, identified key insights about users and markets, and implemented strategies that helped overcome limitations and successfully increased sales and profitability. These examples demonstrate Rinat's ability to think strategically and solve problems by deeply understanding users.

2. Personal introduction
Hello!
My name is Rinat Keinan
I have a BA in Human Services from the University of Haifa
and an MA in Design Management from Bezalel Academy of
Arts and Design in Jerusalem.
For 10 years I worked as an employee in the largest
companies in the Israeli market : in fashion, consumer goods
and medicine.
I have carried out four important and significant positions,
including the development of strategic processes and the
introduction of new consumer products into the Israeli market.
I have dealt with three different challenges that have become
business successes:
First challenge - limitation as an opportunity
Unilever consumer goods company
In 2008 there was a large economic crisis that affected a 30%
decline in the average basket of food chains. Marketing
companies cut or froze marketing budgets and switched
processes. The retailers fought for the attractiveness of
promotions to retain consumer traffic.
At the time, I was the shopper category manager of the
Thelma brand and had to find a way to preserve brand sales
without a large budget. I tried to solve the challenge by using
the 3 circles tool:

3. Brandgoal
Customergoal
Shoppergoal
What’s in it for the
BRAND?
What’s in it for the
CUSTOMER?
What’s in it for the
BUYER?
To be a preferred
choice in the Israeli
home
Bring more buyers to
points of sale
Get maximum
value for money
External parameter: People spend less money, spend less
indulgent time, seek escapism.
Internal parameter: Reality programs are gaining momentum,
the phenomenon of "instant idol"
After doing a lot of information research, the opportunity I found
was to bring the indulgent to the point of sale:
Purchase Thelma packaging, take pictures at the points of sale
and enjoy a package with a name and a personal / family photo.
The move yielded 30% growth in Thelma sales, and the retailers
increased consumer traffic by 15%.
Unilever's marketing chief announced at the end of the year that
this was the winning move for 2008.
If you choose a different point of view, a limitation can
become an opportunity
After that, brands such as Danone, Nutella and Coca-Cola took
similar steps without connecting to retailers points of sale.

4. Second Challenge – knowing your user
Teva pharmaceutical company
In 2011, I was recruited to launch a new brand - a milk formula
for babies in Israel, a market of NIS 600 million with two big
players. It was also a market that was traumatized after the
Remedia baby formula crisis in which three babies died.
Everyone thought who would want to experiment with a new
brand in Israel? Therefore Teva thought it would be worthwhile
to build the brand equity around the Teva company, and to
emphasize the seniority and experience that the brand brings
from abroad.
Teva believed that in any event, the success of the brand in
Israel depends mainly on the professional audience (the "Tipat
Halav" nurses and the recommendation of pediatricians)
The strategic direction did not feel right. I did not believe in this
strategy and the results were not long to come:
The “No. 1 brand in Europe” claim – didn’t affect buying.
The doctors and nurses didn’t recommend any specific brand

5. I decided to get to know my users in depth. I went into
forums and groups online to learn what they thought and how
they behave .
I found that mothers consult a lot with ”mothers like them" about
every decision involving their baby - and they do that before
even consulting their spouse.
In fact, I came to the understanding that the wisdom of
friendship is the deciding factor in the process of this decision
making.
Another insight was that there was a big difference between
“new mothers” and “experienced mothers”- the experienced
mothers wanted to continue what they chose for the first child
with the next. There was also the understanding that our users
were - “first time mothers”.
I decided to act differently:
I opened a Facebook group for ‫״‬first time mothers‫״‬ to talk about
all new experiences involving their baby. The group reached
100,000 members in one year!
I did also a lot of mothers events, and a large campaign of “mom
to mom testimonial recommendations” based on geographical
area. From 2012-2014 I managed to reach 12% of the market
share of baby milk formula.

6. Third Challenge – building an action plan
focused on user behavior
Teva pharmaceutical company
In 2015, I received an opportunity to be senior manager to the
Acamol family, which included 25 different segment products of
the paracetamol molecule. Although this field was the leading
field of Teva in Israel, the brand was bleeding in terms of sales.
Teva believes that profitability is more important than sales or
market share, and therefore reduced budgets and resources.
In general, I agreed with this approach because it is not hard to
display high sales when there are high budgets. The challenge is
to create a higher return on investment - to make every “dollar
investment” bring more dollars back home. Most of the product
and marketing managers are not familiar with financial planning
and profitable economic analysis. At best, They just know how
much they have in their budget and where they want to spend it.
When I studied the new job, I saw that the packaging was very
expensive, and a lot of money was invested in general generic
advertising for a wide audience.
To my advantage, at that time, new research was published.
I found two interesting new facts from that research: The
pharmacy pharmacist has 70% influence on the purchasing
decision and everyone has at least one Acamol brand
product at home.

7. Following the new findings, I operated on several levels:
1. I turned to printing firms to get cheaper alternatives to external
packaging materials, which in turn reduced the cost of packaging
by 8% by changing raw materials. In terms of hundreds of
thousands of packages, this proved saving of hundreds of
thousands in money.
2. Anyone who has experience in advertising knows that the more
you appeal to a wider audience, the more your money gets burned
up faster. In order to increase awareness of your product
messages, you need more "screen time" just with your users. I
decided to change my advertising strategy, similar to the Nutrilon
baby formula brand, by adapting it to the content that the user
searches and wants to know about – in other words, “fish where
the fish are” strategy. For example, the paracetamol focus product
is a solution for migraine and menstrual pain for women. So
women that search and read this content, will be open to new
information related to this content.
Since the new marketing concept approach was revolutionary for
that period, the companies that gave us services did not know
how to execute the new request for advertising. After a lot of
discussion, we came up with a solution to search for content
articles through an Internet content monitoring company. We
collected about 50 articles dealing with migraine and menstrual
pain, and we introduced image banners with remarketing that
allowed us to continue the “screen time” messages to the potential
users of paracetamol focus groups after the reading of the content
was over.

8. In this way, we also focused on the content of Acamol for
children, Acamol Cooling and others.
Because we operated where the users were available to
listen, “fish where the fish are” – we managed to spend 80%
less than the actual advertising budget.
We managed to increase awareness and involvement by more
than 60%, but still, it was not enough to increase sales.
3. The third operation was very crucial - the connection with the
pharmacists at the point of sale, who have 70% influence on the
actual buying decision.
I checked regulatory standards, what types of incentives can be
given to pharmacists and built a monthly plan that would allow
pharmacists to prefer to recommend our Acamol paracetamol
products.
The total number of actions that I found necessary to act
on, proved to be a changing fate for a brand that had bled
for four years.
Within a month, we were able to increase sales by 15% and
improve profitability by 8%
To a field that sells NIS 300 million a year, it was a great
achievement.

9. During 2014-2016 I completed my master's degree at Bezalel, the
foremost Academy of Art and Design in Israel. My degree was in
Design Management. Through the degree, I was exposed to the
start-up world for the first time.
The world of entrepreneurship is a world full of passion and
rich in creativity and brilliant minds. But there is not a drop of
methodology that directs all these wonderful elements into
success over time.
I believed that a combination of my business experience and
design thinking could yield the missing knowledge for
entrepreneurs and product managers to succeed over time.
I took this challenge, and for the next two years, I studied,
researched, interviewed and accompanied dozens of start-ups.
Now, I am proudly sharing the findings and examples from the field
with you, and I hope, of course, that the guide will serve you as
well as it has served many before you.
Regards,
Rinat

10. Understanding the guide
Each action represent important key decision that need to be
overviewed and examined. Each conclusion at one step reflect
and affect the next step action items.
Following pipeline roadmap of these 8 action items guide can
dramatically increase the chances of your product success.

11. Define the goal
When we know exactly where we want to go, unconsciously, we
prepare ourselves, mentally and even physically for just that.
The more accurate we are, the more precise things we
achieve.

12. First action - define the goal
Most entrepreneurs do not know exactly what they want.
In fact, most people do not know exactly what they want.
It's very hard to take a road trip where you have no idea what your
destination is.
In general, the more clearly and accurately you define the goal you
want to achieve, the more likely you are to achieve it. Once you
have precisely defined your goal, once you have chosen an exact
choice of goal, more energy becomes available to achieve the goal
and then the question "What do you want?” becomes "How do I
get it?” When you know exactly where you want to go, you
unconsciously prepare yourself, mentally and even physically for
just that.
The more accurate you are, the more precise objectives you
achieve.

13. Define the goal

14. The goal:
___________________________________
Proposition Product Pack
Price Promotion Place
Persona

15. How can the world of product content understanding,
help / prevent you from achieving your goal?
The purpose of the question is to understand the world of
your product content, which is basically your users market.
What are the current trends in this content world?
Are there any interesting user trends?
Is regulation important?
Who are the support “carriers” (companies / organizations) that
can be relevant to your product?
Proposition
If you do not have the information for the questions, it is
time to open your laptops and connect to the Internet to get
answers. The best way to get answers is through
information from forums / social networks / articles / desk
research and business information about the direction of
action of large companies in the market that can be the
carrier of understanding the world of your product content.
The goal:
___________________________________

16. Example
20
players
29
billion
4
players
130
billion
I was approached by entrepreneurs who developed a brilliant
product idea for indoors air purification. They were sure that the
target of their product content was the home air purifier market
and they sent me thousands of materials they had collected in
the past 3 years, since they began to develop the idea of ​​the
product.
When I read all the materials, I was really stressed by the
amount of products that existed in this market and by the fact
that this is a niche world of "problem-solving" awareness - for
asthmatics, etc.
I tried to look at the product idea from a new perspective.
What happens today in home appliances? There is the IOT
revolution - smart home automation products sold over the
Internet
Users from all over the world are looking for technological
solutions to improve the quality of their daily routines. This is an
interesting statistic and information that can change the business
opportunity roadmap of this product idea.

17. Product
What characterizations exist in the product
that can help you / prevent you from
achieving your goal?
The purpose of the question is to understand your product
in depth from the end-user perspective.
What can or does the product do?
Is there something that you found out from the previous
question, that seems important and the product cannot do?
Is there something unique that the product can provide that
does not yet exist?
Does the product offer added value that’s better than what
already exists on the current market?
The best way to know that you have all the information is to
check the existing and forecasted planning market:
Information from forums / social networks / articles / desk
research and business information about the direction of
action of large companies that you defined in the previous
question.
The goal:
___________________________________

18. Example
Providing safe for indoors
air quality
Making your home safer by
cleaner air quality
Consumer
Education
(active)
Consumer
Life- style
(passive)
As soon as I realized that there was an interesting trend of
smart home consumption behavior, I looked at the product
more broadly – the product concept enables smart home
security through air purification.
User education is a challenge that requires the user to
actively change existing habits and therefore can take a lot
of time and resources that are not always available to you.

19. How can the use of the product
help you / prevent you from achieving your goal?
Pack
The purpose of the question is to understand in depth the
level of simplicity / complexity of the product in interaction
with the user
Is there a certain constraint in using the product?
Is the product complex / simple to use?
If it is still just a product idea, it is time to talk to the programmer
or designer and verify the stages of conceptual product use with
him. If the product already exists, you may want to test it
yourself
The goal:
___________________________________

20. Example
Big limitation
Mac computers usage Only 30%
photographers use Mac
computers
I accompanied a group of entrepreneurs who developed
intelligent photo editing software. But there was a limitation -
the software was only compatible with APPLE's Mac
computers. This was a limitation that "made it difficult" to
achieve the goal set by entrepreneurs to "significantly increase
the number of users." The users they defined were the
photographers' community.
In a quick test on Google, I found that only 30% of
photographers purchased APPLE's Mac computers.
The product’s limit become a limitation to achieving the
goal set by the entrepreneurs.
however, the limitation become an opportunity, and I will
discuss it further during examples of the questions of this
action.

21. Can product pricing help you / prevent you from
achieving your goal?
Price
The purpose of the question is to understand how to price
your product from the end-user perspective
Is the pricing you're thinking about for the product suitable /
unsuitable for the perception of user value?
Pricing should be examined first through the information you
have collected so far from previous questions and then re-
examined in terms of profitability feasibility.
If the product is priced too high for the value perceived by
users, it will reduce the number of users the product can
gain. If the product is priced too low, it will affect the
product's sales cycle and consequent profitability.
The goal:
___________________________________

22. Example
Example of pricing a product idea
In the IOT market that we investigated on Google, we found
that the range of smart products sold to households, ranged
from $100 to $150.
This finding reflects on the price perception that users today
are willing to pay for a smart home product. Therefore, product
pricing should be tested around this range.

23. Example
Example of changing the pricing of an existing
product
The developers of photo editing software priced their product at
$70 after a two month free trial. There should have been no
problem with the pricing, because they brought real innovation
to photo editing that did not exist before.
In practice, they did not have many conversions to buy after the
free software experience.
The first reason - they turned to a very small
segment - 30%.
Second - the perception of pricing value was high because
photographers had a lot of diverse needs and the product did
not provide a solution for everyone.

24. What are the user distribution channels that can help
you / prevent you from
achieving your goal?
Promotion
The purpose of the question is to identify the most effective
ways to enable your product to reach the suitable end user.
In the classic marketing world, this strategy defines as “fish
where the fish are”. And in a simpler translation, you want to be
where your user is and not invest efforts and resources to
bring the user to you. Your chances are much higher in the
first, passive option than in the second option.
The best way to know that you have all the information is to
check the existing and forecasted planning market:
Information from forums / social networks / articles / desk
research and business information about the direction of action
of large companies that you defined in the previous questions.
The goal:
___________________________________

25. Example
If the product is only compatible with APPLE's Mac
computers, then the first obvious way is to look at APPLE's
distribution channels:
Point of Sale, App-store, MAC Maintenance Services, etc.
These are the channels where existing or potential users can
be found on Mac computers.

26. What are the interaction points with the user that can help
you / prevent you from achieving your goal?
Place
The purpose of the question is to understand what are all
the points of convergence and possibilities in the user's
behavior, which can affect the use / non-use of the product.
In the classic retail world, the success of the product is defined
by: Location, Location, Location
The product should be in the right place at the right time so
that the user can distinguish it and want to purchase it.
The best way to know that you have all the information is to
check the existing and forecasted planning market:
Information from forums / social networks / articles and desk
research
The goal:
___________________________________

27. Example
If we were trying to reach MAC users through the App-store,
we would have a problem of not being seen, because there
are a lot of applications.
This interaction point would reduce the chances that the user
would notice the product. On the other hand, we found a lot of
social networks and blog discussions among MAC users
communities. So we marked the finding as an opportunity for
a relevant interaction point

28. How can having a detailed description of the user help
you / prevent you from achieving your goal?
Persona
The purpose of the question is to better know and
understand the user of the product
What are the features and characteristics of the user?
How can they be translated into a real description of the user?
How can you describe your user in words?
The most effective way that always helps me, is to do online
qualitative users research. I search through forums and
social networks to find potential user conversations. From the
conversations that I find on the web, I examine characteristics
and words that repeat themselves. These findings help me to
identify the user definition.
The goal:
___________________________________

29. Example
The users of air purification products said that the issue of
home air quality followed the identification of a breathing
problem: massive asthma / smoking.
After the identification of the breathing problem, they contacted
a professional who recommended a home appliance solution.
Smart home users say they are looking for affordable,
automated technology solutions that will improve the quality of
their daily routines and allow them to spend more time with
their family in the home.
After we specified the characterization of different potential
users, it was clear to us where the best opportunity for the
product was.

30. Example We all know the Harry Potter series,
the most successful fiction series of all
time. But we could have almost missed
it.
In 1996, eight children's literature
editors in London received first
chapters of the Harry Potter story. All of
the first seven didn’t want to publish
the manuscript, because they didn’t
think that they had read something
new or a potential best-seller.
Children’s literature is a loaded book
market.
The 8th editor, Barry, believed that if seven colleagues had
rejected the draft, he should also make a similar decision. The
only difference was that Barry usually gave his eight-year-old
daughter the new drafts of children's literature to read. And in
this case too, the draft reached her. To Barry's surprise, his
daughter was so excited by the reading that she begged her
father to get the rest of the chapters to read. For her it was the
most fascinating story she had ever read.
Recognizing the suitable user, can make all the difference
with your product!

31. Example
When I finished the first draft of this book, I met an expert start-
upper who had made three successful exits. My spouse
recommended that I meet with him to see what he thought of
my project.
The meeting took two hours, during this time the expert was not
interested in reading the method of my project or hearing
examples of my work with startups.
He was interested in telling me that without my own start-up
experience, I have nothing to contribute to startups, and I'd
better help consumer product managers from my professional
experience as a salesperson.
I was very, very upset by the meeting, especially because I felt
that I had already done research, interviews, and had
accompanied many startups, all of whom I had helped.
That evening I ran an anonymous online questionnaire in a
start-up group’s social media. Gladly, I got a clear answer to the
questions:
Is the information interesting? Yes.
What will make you trust it? If the information will teach me
something new and give me tools for solutions.
The success of a product is not directly dependent on its
being good or excellent, but in directing it to the suitable
audience

32. After you have placed the notes, you will discuss all the
questions and solutions you have written.
I recommend that you circle the most important
findings you have identified as an opportunity or a
limitation. These are the findings that will focus you on
the next task- identifying the suitable user.

33. Rinat Keinan
PIPELINE GUIDE
How to transform a product idea into success.
With best practices and template for fundraising.
To contact me:
https://pipeline.guide
Buy on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Rinat-Keinan