1. I N T H I S I S S U E
P R O D M A G
Demystifying the world of Product Management
F O L L O W U S |
J U N E ' 2 2
Edition 8
This edition of ProdMag begins with an article on Personas and how
Spotify has made them. We then move 0n to coverage of our Speaker
Session on "Acing the Early Career in Product Management".
Finally, we end with an article covering the recent fall of Netflix.
Enjoy!
3. Constructing Personas:
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How do we craft personas?
User-centred design has several schools of thought on how
best to create and use personas. The general idea is that
capturing and clustering the needs, goals, habits, and
attitudes of existing and potential users helps to build a
solid understanding of the problem space.
The Spotify Story:
Spotify did it in two Phases, In Phase-I,
they used a combination of diary
studies and contextual inquiries to
collect user data. They picked the US
market with long commutes and
suburban lifestyles and studied
listeners of different ages, incomes,
family types, lifestyles, music cultures,
and more.
They transcribed user interviews minute-by-minute.
Then, hand coded and clustered them into needs,
attitudes, device habits, contexts, and other dimensions
in order to identify the best cluster combinations.
In the second, they built on a key Phase 1 insight – when it
comes to music listening, context matters. And so we sought
to unpack the nuances and complexities that arise when
people listen together at home, in the car, with kids, to
ensure that they had an extensive variety of situations
where people came together to listen to music.
Spotify tackled the challenging task of figuring out which
characteristics to include in personas, lest they end up
excluding certain groups by arbitrarily picking characteristics
from the range of people they interviewed and reduced the
personas to representations of personas to keywords, symbols,
colors and energy levels to represent enthusiasm for music.
They disseminated their research and approach as an
interactive website, a digital source of truth for the
research that was especially handy whenever we needed to
update the study or add new learnings, organized
workshops with product teams and helped them to use
personas in a way that was relevant to their specific areas.
Teams started creating mental model diagrams for different
personas and discovering how they experience their
journeys. And in doing so, they can refine the features to
better fit certain ways of listening to music, while making
sure they don’t alienate others.
Spotify's User research matrix
The Impact:
Spotify's representative personas
References:
Spotify.Design
Interaction-Design.Org
Lene Nielsen, the famous design guru and first in the world
to write a PhD about personas gives a detailed 10-step
process to create personas, George Olsen's persona toolkit
is another widely acclaimed extensive toolkit.
But we'll take a detour from academia to the real world with
Spotify's story of how they developed their personas tool,
how they use it, and why it’s so useful for an autonomous,
cross-functional organisation like Spotify.
Spotify's Persona Workshops
4. CUSTOMER
A PM should always be obsessed with customers which goes beyond just listening.
Customers tend to say what they want. However, every want also has an inherent need
behind it. Listen to customers’ wants and dig deep into their needs. There are
companies that ship wants and needs. But when you ship unstated needs you become
differentiators, and delighters and your customers become your fans
Learning 1: Great PMs identify and address unstated needs to make fans.
PRODUCT:
When a PM is building a product, they must operate on the ‘WHY’ (Problem) side, not
just on the 'HOW' (Solution) side because they should be convinced why they are
building a product. Only then the product will be meaningful for customers and it
creates value for every stakeholder.
Learning 2: Fall in LOVE with the problem, not the solution
Sandeep Chadda
SPEAKER SESSION RECAP:
ACING THE EARLY CAREER
IN PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
By Sourabh Mahendra
PGP '23
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Where do you start when you want to learn how to crack Product management? You ask the experts. We are excited to
share with you the experiences of two industry veterans, as covered in our speaker session held on April 24, 2022.
Principal Lead Program Manager, Microsoft
Sandeep is leading product development in Microsoft Gaming. He’s also a PGPX alumnus from the 2015 batch
When I started my career in Product Management, I had no idea what it was about. I learned about Product Management
after reading the book “Hit Refresh” by Satya Nadella. As a PM, you need to take care of four important things. They are
your CUSTOMER, PRODUCT, PARTNERS & TEAM. I have seven learnings across these four major areas.
Click for recording of the session :
5. 0-1 product 1-many product
There are a lot of unknowns on the problem definition, Ideal customer
profile discovery and the go-to-market strategy.
A lot of unknowns
Small changes may lead to massive benefits due to big audience.
A/B testing at a large scale to validate a hypothesis. Large data will
ensure the quick testing
Focus on specific parts/ modules of the product
Fail fast and learn faster. Look for hacks to launch quicker because the first
to the market will capture the larger share
Speed and agility matter more than finesse
Cross-functional alignment between different functions
The innovator’s dilemma: Focus on your products but it’s important to
look out for new disruptions.
Lots of processes in place
The primary focus will be on customer acquisition and activation, profit
and monetization are not the immediate focus.
Growth as KPI
You want your investments to be recouped and have high valuations
CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) and NPS (Net Promoter Score)
Retention and monetization as additional KPIs
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It's important to get the problem right. Once you understand the problem, try solving it in an iterative way. Solve for a
tiny problem, experiment, and build an MVP to measure and learn. It's a process of continuous improvements.
Learning 3: It’s a continuous process of improvements and that is how it works.
Once you have a product, the metrics measure will make or break the product you built. Wrong metrics create the wrong
culture, bad products and poor service. In other words, we need to find the exact metrics to scale the success.
Learning 4: You build what you measure but if you don’t measure you are lurking in the dark.
TEAM:
It’s a PM's priority to know their team. PMs are a glue around whom a lot of people from different functions
(developers, UX team, designers, legal, sales & marketing) in the organization operate. PMs have
responsibility but no authority. They own the product but not the people building the product. It's crucial to
influence all the stakeholders for a successful product.
Learning 5: Drive your team on purpose and customer obsession rather than on authority.
People believe that failure is not an option, but in product management, you will fail. If you didn't fail, you're
underthinking or overthinking. But once you failed, you must reflect and apply your learnings into the next
delivery. This is the Growth Mindset.
Learning 6: Great PMs exhibit' growth mindset' and are prepared to fail.
Don't just go with the compliance of your leadership and managers' beliefs and opinions.
Stay observant because the next biggest idea that can propel you into the realms of the next orbit is sitting
there knocking at your door.
Learning 7: Always question the status quo and stay observant.
Devarsh Desai
Staff Product Manager, Freshbooks
Devarsh led product initiatives in B2B and B2C in a domains including Fintech and E-commerce. An ISB alumnus of 2015 Batch
Product Management differs widely across companies depending on where the company stands. The role was redefined to
capture a multitude of functions while keeping an eye on the four pillars.
Acquisition 2. Growth 3. Retention 4. Monetization
1.
For new and upcoming PMs, you need to do the following for the first 30 days as a
Product Manager. PMs should gain the expertise into different functions of the role
Get a demo of the full product suite of your company:
Do a tear down of the product what’s working and what’s not.
Result: Ask fellow PMs why the feature is made that way.
Observe 10 Ideal Customer Profiles (B2C)/ Sit into 10 customer demos.
Are there any Aha/ frustrating moments? Do the customers understand the value
proposition?
Result: Structure all the data into a spreadsheet.
Competitor and market analysis
Go through as many competitor demos. Read customer reviews about those products
Result: Prepare battle cards with your own perspective
Customer support and report data
Start monitoring customer support tickets daily for 30 minutes.
Observe the changes in consumer behaviour and the underlying trends.
Result: Independently do support for 1 whole day.
Read books, and articles to get more knowledge
Books on domains and articles on general market trends
Result: Summarize and present your observations to your peers and team
6. THE RISE AND FALL OF NETFLIX
By Shweta Singh
PGP '23
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In this article, we will discuss the factors for Netflix's success
in the past, the reasons for recent fall in subscriber count and
its future implications.
Netflix
Netflix is a popular subscription based video streaming service
and a production company. In fact, binge-watching has become
synonymous to Netflixing. Netflix is an excellent example of a
company that has changed its business model multiple times
over the years and gained significantly from it. As of 2022,
Netflix has over 200 million subscribers and is operational in
over 190 countries, with a revenue of more than 29 billion USD.
It offers a wide range of movies, TV series and documentaries,
spanning across 21 languages, which users across all age groups
can watch from anywhere at any time.
Growth
Netflix was launched in 1997 as a rental DVD service via mail
which worked on a pay-per-rental model. Almost an year later,
it switched to a subscription model from pay-per-rental model.
At that time, brick and mortar stores dominated DVD rental
market and Netflix’s online rental service came as a
disruption. These stores along with, Netflix’s biggest
competitor, Blockbuster, lost the battle when they failed to
move online. Nearly, a decade later, in 2007, Netflix changed
its proposition to subscription based online video streaming
service.
Other than being the pioneers of the industry with this
subscription based online video streaming service model,
there are other salient features in Netflix’s business model
that drove its exponential growth. These include leveraging
the large amount of data and combining it with sophisticated
technology to not only recommend, but also create content
that fits users’ preferences.
Affordable pricing, accessibility, top notch recommendation
system, original content and vast content spanning different
genres were salient in Netflix's popularity.
7. https://www.businessmodelsinc.com/exponential-business-
model/netflix/
https://www.business-
standard.com/article/international/netflix-plunges-after-
covid-pandemic-boom-shudders-to-near-halt-in-q1-fy21-
121042100109_1.html#:~:text=Netflix%20Inc.,forecast%20by
%20millions%20of%20subscribers.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61173561
https://www.statista.com/chart/7677/netflix-subscriber-
growth/
The Way Forward
The streaming service market is maturing and people's
expectations are being reset. Even though Netflix is still the
market leader, it does not have the deep pockets of Amazon,
Disney or Apple. This makes it even more vulnerable to price
competition and margin squeeze. Hence, to remain at the top,
Netflix is planning to fall back on high quality content from
home production to gain subscriber volume and customer
loyalty.
It is also planning to prioritise its programming investment in
regions outside US, where most of its new subscribers are
from. Netflix gained 1.81 million customers across Europe,
Africa and Middle East, making it the leading region for future
investment. The company also plans to buy back up to $5
billion of shares to reduce its debt.
References
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Covid Pandemic Impact
Lockdowns imposed during the covid pandemic brought a
surge in online streaming activity, with worldwide
subscriptions to online video streaming services rising to 1.1
billion. Direct OTT release of new movies away from the box
office pressures was another pandemic aided factor which
caused a shift in consumer behaviour. This affinity towards
Direct to Consumer Streaming Model continues even now.
Riding along this wave, streaming services like Netflix,
Disney+, Prime Video etc. showed record growth during
2020-21. But this huge pandemic led growth also brought
online streaming industry near its saturation limit. New
players entered this place and existing played upped their
game by widening their services. Increased offerings at low
prices also made consumers in this segment price sensitive.
In the first quarter of 2022, after more than a decade of
unwavering growth, Netflix saw a decrease in its subscriber
count. Its subscriber count decreased by approximately
200,000, wiping away around $50 billion from the firm's
market. This trend is expected to continue with a projected
loss of 2 million more subscribers by July 2022. Netflix had
been warning that growth would slow down after consumers
return back to normalcy after Covid-19 hibernation, but few
expected the numbers to be this drastic, when Q1 2020 was
the strongest in its history, with the addition of 15.8 million
subscribers.
Fall
The above factors
along with the return
of normalcy in 2022,
bursted the pandemic
growth bubble for
online streaming
services.
Reasons
As discussed above, pandemic led growth brought in more
competitors and made consumers more price sensitive,
which made the fight for market share more intense and
tough. Netflix mainly attributed this decrease to "Covid-19
pull forward effect", meaning, hyper-growth due to
pandemic measures has taken a toll on its current numbers.
It has also acknowledged increased competition affected its
marginal growth and lack of new shows added to that effect.
In the current economic scenario, consumers are also
cutting back on streaming services to save money and are
moving towards cheaper options.
8. Decode and Conquer: Answers to Product Management - Lewis
C. Lin
Cracking the PM Interview - Gayle Laakmann
PM Starter Kit for PGP1s - Coming July 2022
Click here to download
Product Folks
StellarPeers
PMExercises
Exponent
Prodman Club of IIM Ahmedabad
Books and other prep materials
Futuristic Outlook to Product Management
Blogs
Youtube Channels
RESOURCES TO GET STARTED WITH
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