Main Takeaways: - Learn why B2B and B2C Product Managers are very different. - How the customer impacts the Product Manager style. - What that means for your approach to B2B Product Management.

1. www.productschool.com
Vector Head of Product on How to
Make a World of Difference (B2B vs
B2C)

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10. Nathan Creswell
TONIGHT’S SPEAKER

11. A Little About Me
Where I Was Company Stage What I Learnt
Apttus, first Product hire Startup How to Do a Lot With Little
Salesforce Data.com, Senior
Product Manager
BigCo How to Deploy Product at Scale
Zuora, Product Director MidSize to IPO How To Be Thoughtful as You
Scale
Vector, Head of Product Startup How to Do It All Again!
*And a whole bunch of SAP and Siebel stuff before all this!

12. A Little About Me
Venture Partner at NextGen Capital
Partner at Flight Ventures (SaaS Syndicate)
And I run my own product consultancy!
Follow me! @nathcres
Connect with me on LinkedIn!

13. Data
• At most B2B Companies the ratio of PM to Engineers is quite high i.e., around 1:10*
• At most B2C Companies the ratio of PM to Engineers is quite low, i.e., around 1: 15 or 1:20 even*
*As proven by unscientifically examining companies me and my friends have worked at ☺
WHY IS THIS?

14. B2B Is Different
The Buyer is not the User
The Metric is the Use Case
Positioning is Everything

15. Buyer ≠ User

16. For Example:
• The CIO buys IT department software
• The CFO buys a new billing system for their finance department
• Sales Director buys Salesforce for Account Execs
B2B – The Buyer is not the User
So What?

17. Design becomes a luxury not a necessity
B2B – The User Experience is Secondary

18. Why make UX better when users don’t pay?
• Do the minimum to “Get Their Job Done” in
order to achieve the ROI of the product
• SAP is a classic example of this
B2B – The User Experience is Secondary

19. Key to many B2B SaaS products is process
standardization
“But WE do it this
way”
B2B – The Product Focus Changes (And it’s much slower)
Configuration and Customization
become a first order product concern
E.g., “Switches” to change product
behavior
E.g., Custom Fields, Objects, Layouts

20. • The need to prove the ROI of the product
means it has to be measured
• Reporting usage of the product becomes a
first order concern
• Hence the birth of “Customer Success”
B2B – The Product Focus Changes (And it’s much slower)

21. And your way has to be ~10x better than doing nothing
B2B – The Product Focus Changes (And it’s much slower)
The time to ideate, build, sell, and scale a
non-viral B2B product is LONG

22. B2B Is Different
The Buyer is not the User
The Metric is the Use Case
Positioning is Everything

23. • B2C companies obsess
over metrics: MAU, DAU
etc…
• At LinkedIn, if as a PM your
metrics affect another PM’s
they will contact you to
yank your feature
B2B – The Metric is the Use Case
But in B2B the Metric IS the Use Case

24. • 20 years go, customers wanted partner portals
• Today, customers want partner portals
The use case doesn’t change, the technology does
Businesses change very slowly

25. By far, B2B products answer one question
B2B – The Metric is the Use Case
But what about A/B testing?
Can the user complete their use case?
(How, only needs to be “less” worse than how they currently do it)

26. I have a dirty, terrible
secret

27. Are you ready for it?

28. Are you sure?

29. I have never, ever run
an A/B test in my entire
career

30. B2B software is often about changing the way a user does a business process
B2B – You Can’t A/B Test Process Change
Before After
Excel Spreadsheets Databases
Manual Signatures Electronic Signatures

31. • Unless you have the volumes of say
Salesforce, datasets simply are not
large enough
• And in any case, you cannot change
how someone does their job for a
“test”
B2B – You Can’t A/B test (most) B2B datasets

32. • Now of course you do testing in B2B
• But the form it takes is much different
B2B – You Can’t A/B test (most) B2B datasets

33. B2B Is Different
The Buyer is not the User
The Metric is the Use Case
Positioning is Everything

34. In B2C, the product sells
In B2B, people sell
B2B Organizations have much higher Sales and Marketing spend to appeal to the Buyer
B2B – Positioning Is Everything

35. B2B – Sales and Marketing First!
Box: 3-4x R&D

36. B2B – Sales and Marketing First!
Salesforce: 4x R&D

37. B2B – Sales and Marketing First!
Google: ~1:1

38. B2B – Sales and Marketing First!
FB: ~1:1

39. So What?
B2B – Sales and Marketing First!

40. • Sales becomes a power center in many B2B
companies
• As Product, being close to and tracking Sales issues
becomes paramount
• Where is Sales struggling? How do they overcome
objections? Where is the positioning landing versus
not landing?
B2B – Sales and Marketing First!

41. Position, Position
Position
“Buy the Vision, Sell
the General Ledger”
B2B – Sales and Marketing First!

42. What would you buy?
A Billing System
OR
An Engine for the Subscription
Economy
B2B – Sales and Marketing First!

43. OF COURSE!
So is anything the same between B2B and B2C?

44. You still have Users
You still need to build Features
You still have a Roadmap
You still need to SHIP PRODUCT AND MAKE CUSTOMERS
HAPPY
But HOW you do it
WHY you do it
Fundamentally Changes
So is anything the same between B2B and B2C?

45. www.productschool.com
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