But what exactly is product engagement? At its core, it’s about how users interact with your product at the most granular level. It’s not just about downloads or sign-ups – those are vanity metrics that don’t tell the full story. True engagement is about consistent, meaningful interactions that provide value to your users and, in turn, drive retention and growth for your business.

The landscape of product engagement has shifted dramatically over the past decade. As Marc Andreessen famously proclaimed, “Software is eating the world,” and that sentiment rings truer than ever today. With the proliferation of digital products in nearly every facet of our lives, user expectations have skyrocketed. We’re no longer competing just within our own product categories – we’re competing for users’ limited time and attention against every other digital experience out there.

This raises the stakes for product teams. We can no longer ship a feature and consider our job done. Success now depends on continuous improvement, adapting to changing user needs, and creating experiences that users genuinely want to return to. It’s about tracking usage to make informed decisions, but more importantly, it’s about understanding the ‘why’ behind user behavior.

In this essay, we’ll dive deep into the world of product engagement. We’ll explore frameworks for understanding engagement, like Sarah Tavel’s Hierarchy of Engagement, which provides a roadmap from core actions to network effects. We’ll look at how to measure engagement effectively, moving beyond surface-level metrics to truly understand user behavior.

We’ll also tackle the strategies that can drive engagement, from optimizing onboarding experiences to leveraging AI for personalization. But it’s not all smooth sailing – we’ll address the challenges that come with pursuing engagement, including the delicate balance between keeping users active and respecting their well-being.

As we look to the future, we’ll examine how product engagement is evolving. New technologies and changing user expectations are reshaping what engagement looks like, and as product leaders, we need to stay ahead of these trends.

Whether you’re leading a team at a startup or steering product strategy at a large corporation, understanding and improving product engagement is crucial. It’s the key to building products that don’t just solve problems, but become an indispensable part of users’ lives. 

Let’s dive in…

Understanding the Engagement Framework

To truly grasp product engagement, we need a robust framework that goes beyond surface-level metrics. This is where Sarah Tavel’s Hierarchy of Engagement comes into play. Tavel, a general partner at Benchmark and former product lead at Pinterest, developed this framework to help product teams focus on what really matters when it comes to user engagement.

The Hierarchy of Engagement is like a pyramid, with each level building on the one below it. At the base, we have the core action – the fundamental interaction that defines your product’s value. For Facebook, it might be adding friends. For Uber, it may be booking a ride. For Spotify, it could be playing a song. This core action is the heartbeat of your product, the thing users come back to do again and again.

But identifying this core action isn’t always straightforward. As Tavel points out, it’s important to pick the right action – and one that scales for enough users. Tavel discussed Pinterest as an example. In its early days, the team wasn’t sure whether to focus on following, liking, or pinning. They eventually realized that pinning was the action that best encapsulated the value of their product and drove user retention.

Once you’ve nailed down your core action, the next level of the hierarchy is about retention. This is where things get interesting. It’s not enough for users to perform the core action once – you want them coming back regularly. The key here is to create what Tavel calls “accruing benefits.” Your product should get better the more a user engages with it.

Think about how Spotify’s recommendations improve the more you listen, or how your Instagram feed becomes more relevant the more accounts you follow and interact with. These accruing benefits create a virtuous cycle: the more a user engages, the more valuable the product becomes, which in turn drives more engagement.

But the pinnacle of engagement, the top of the pyramid, is network effects. This is where your product becomes truly sticky. Network effects occur when your product becomes more valuable to each user as more people use it. LinkedIn is a prime example – its value to you increases exponentially with each new connection in your professional network.

Now, you might be thinking, “That’s great for social networks, but what about my B2B SaaS product?” The beauty of this framework is its versatility. Even if you’re not building a social platform, you can still apply these principles. Your core action might be creating a document or analyzing data. Your accruing benefits could be AI-powered suggestions that improve over time. And your network effects might come from shared templates or collaborative features.

The key is to think creatively about how these principles apply to your specific product. Understanding this framework gives you a roadmap for improving engagement. If you’re struggling with retention, you might need to work on your accruing benefits. If you’ve got good retention but growth is slow, it might be time to focus on network effects.

But remember, this isn’t a one-time exercise. As your product evolves and your user base grows, you may need to reassess what constitutes your core action or how you’re building accruing benefits. The landscape of digital products is always changing, and with it, user expectations and behaviors.

By grounding your engagement strategy in this framework, you’re setting yourself up for long-term success. You’re not just chasing vanity metrics or short-term growth hacks. Instead, you’re building a product that becomes more valuable to users over time, creating a sustainable engine for growth and engagement.

Measuring and Analyzing Product Engagement

When it comes to engagement, what gets measured gets managed. But in a world awash with data, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of metrics that don’t actually tell you much about how engaged your users truly are. As product leaders, our job is to cut through the noise and focus on the metrics that matter.

Let’s start with vanity metrics. You know the ones I’m talking about – total downloads, registered users, or even monthly active users (MAU). While these numbers might look great in a board deck, they often mask the real story of user engagement. After all, what good is a million downloads if nobody’s actually using your app?

Instead, we need to dig deeper. One powerful approach comes from Pendo, which developed the Product Engagement Score (PES). This composite metric combines three key elements: adoption, stickiness, and growth. Adoption measures how many of your core features users are actually using. Stickiness looks at how frequently users return to your product. And growth tracks how well you’re acquiring and retaining users over time.

But even a metric like PES is just a starting point. The real insights come when you start slicing and dicing your data. This is where cohort analysis can be especially useful. By grouping users based on when they first used your product, you can track how engagement evolves over time. Are users who joined six months ago more or less engaged than those who joined last week? This kind of analysis can reveal whether your product is becoming more engaging over time or if you’re facing a retention cliff.

On Lenny’s Podcast, Sarah Tavel talked about the importance of tracking what she calls the “core action” of your product. This might be sending a message in a chat app, creating a document in a productivity tool, or making a purchase in an e-commerce platform. Whatever it is, this core action is the heartbeat of your product, and tracking its frequency can give you a clear picture of true engagement.

But here’s the thing: there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to measuring engagement. Your metrics need to align with your product’s unique value proposition. For a meditation app, success might mean users completing a 10-minute session daily. For a project management tool, it could be the number of tasks completed or team members collaborated with.

One trap I’ve seen many product teams fall into is focusing too heavily on aggregate metrics. While these can give you a high-level view, they often obscure important patterns. Instead, try segmenting your users based on different characteristics – perhaps by user type, acquisition channel, or feature usage. You might find that what looks like moderate engagement overall is actually a mix of highly engaged power users and barely-there occasional users.

Another powerful technique is to combine quantitative metrics with qualitative feedback. User interviews, surveys, and support ticket analysis can provide context to your engagement data. Maybe your usage numbers dropped last month, but your qualitative data shows it’s because users are becoming more efficient with your tool – that’s a win, not a loss.

As you dive into your engagement data, keep an eye out for leading indicators. These are early signs that can predict future engagement trends. For instance, if you notice new users are taking longer to complete their first core action, that could signal future retention issues.

Remember, measuring engagement isn’t just about tracking numbers – it’s about understanding the story behind those numbers. Why are users behaving the way they are? What’s driving changes in engagement over time? These are the questions that will lead you to meaningful product improvements.

Lastly, don’t forget to benchmark your engagement metrics against industry standards and your own historical data. This context can help you understand if you’re on the right track or if there’s room for improvement.

In the end, the goal of measuring engagement isn’t to produce pretty charts or impress stakeholders. It’s to gain insights that drive action. Every metric you track should lead to a potential decision or area of focus. If it doesn’t, it might be time to reconsider whether it’s worth tracking at all.

Strategies to Drive and Improve Engagement

Now that we’ve got a solid grasp on measuring engagement, we can focus on strategies that can move the needle. First things first: onboarding. It’s your product’s first impression, and we all know how crucial those can be. A great onboarding experience isn’t just about showing users where the buttons are – it’s about getting them to that “aha” moment as quickly as possible. This is where they first experience the core value of your product.

Take Slack, for example. They don’t just dump new users into an empty workspace. Instead, they guide them through creating channels, inviting team members, and sending their first message. By the time a user finishes onboarding, they’ve already experienced the key value proposition of improved team communication.

But here’s the thing – onboarding isn’t a one-and-done deal. This means continually educating users about new features and use cases, even long after they’ve signed up.

Once users are through the door, the next challenge is building habits. Nir Eyal’s Hook Model is a great framework for this, consisting of four steps: trigger, action, variable reward, and investment. Let’s use the example of a fitness app. The trigger might be a daily notification (external) or the user’s desire to stay healthy (internal). The action is opening the app and starting a workout. The variable reward could be the endorphin rush from exercise, or seeing progress in their fitness journey. And the investment might be logging their workout or sharing their achievement with friends.

The key is to design these loops in a way that aligns with your core engagement metrics. If your key metric is daily active users, your habit loop should encourage daily use. If it’s user-generated content, the loop should make content creation feel rewarding and effortless.

In today’s world, users expect experiences tailored to their needs and preferences. This is where AI and machine learning can be game-changers. Netflix’s recommendation engine is a prime example – the more you watch, the better it gets at suggesting content you’ll love.

But personalization isn’t just for media companies. B2B products can use it too. Imagine a project management tool that learns which tasks you typically handle and automatically assigns similar ones to you. Or a CRM that surfaces the most relevant leads based on your past success rates.

Community building is another powerful engagement strategy, especially for products with a social component. When users feel part of a community, they’re more likely to stick around. This could be as simple as adding commenting features to your product, or as involved as creating dedicated spaces for users to interact, share tips, and help each other.

Hipcamp, a marketplace for camping experiences, does this brilliantly. They’ve created a community of hosts and campers who share stories, photos, and tips. This user-generated content not only keeps people engaged with the platform but also provides valuable information for new users. 

One often overlooked strategy is surprise and delight. These are unexpected positive experiences that can create strong emotional connections with your product. It could be as simple as a congratulatory message when a user hits a milestone, or as elaborate as Spotify’s annual “Wrapped” feature, which gives users a personalized recap of their listening habits.

Remember, driving engagement isn’t just about adding more features. Sometimes, it’s about removing friction. Regularly audit your user journeys to identify and eliminate pain points. Maybe it’s simplifying a complex workflow, reducing the number of clicks to complete a task, or providing clearer error messages.

Lastly, don’t underestimate the power of good old-fashioned customer service. Responsive support can turn a potentially negative experience into a positive one, keeping users engaged when they might otherwise have churned.

As you implement these strategies, always keep your core engagement metrics in mind. Every tactic should tie back to improving those key indicators we discussed earlier. And remember, what works for one product might not work for another. The key is to experiment, measure, and iterate.

Overcoming Engagement Challenges

Driving product engagement isn’t all smooth sailing. As we navigate these waters, we’re bound to encounter some choppy seas. It’s important to recognize some of the most common challenges product leaders face when trying to boost engagement, and explore strategies to overcome them.

First up is the balancing act between engagement and user well-being. In our quest for higher engagement metrics, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s actually good for our users. We’ve all heard the stories of social media apps designed to be addictive, leading to debates about digital well-being. But this isn’t just a problem for social platforms.

Even B2B products can fall into this trap. Think about a project management tool that sends notifications for every little update. Sure, it might drive more frequent logins, but at what cost to your users’ productivity and peace of mind? As Nir Eyal, author of Hooked and Indistractable, points out, “The goal is to create healthy habits, not unhealthy addictions.”

The key here is to focus on quality engagement over quantity. Ask yourself: Are we driving engagement that actually delivers value to our users? Are we respecting their time and attention? This might mean sacrificing some short-term engagement metrics for long-term user satisfaction and loyalty.

Another major challenge is addressing engagement drop-offs and churn. It’s a familiar story: users sign up with enthusiasm, engage heavily for a week or two, and then… crickets. This “retention cliff” is the bane of many product managers’ existence.

To tackle this, we need to dig deep into our user data. Where exactly are users dropping off? What actions (or lack thereof) tend to precede churn? Tools like cohort analysis can be invaluable here. Maybe you’ll discover that users who don’t connect with three friends in the first week are much more likely to churn. Armed with this insight, you can design interventions to nudge users towards these crucial actions.

Next up: the challenge of engaging different user segments. Your power users might crave advanced features and customization, while newcomers need simplicity and guidance. How do you cater to both without cluttering your UI or confusing either group?

One approach is to use progressive disclosure. Start with a simple interface that covers the basics, then gradually reveal more advanced features as users become more experienced. Notion does this brilliantly, starting users off with basic notes and lists, but allowing them to build complex databases and workflows as they grow more comfortable with the tool.

Another strategy is to create different user journeys for different segments. B2B products often do this by tailoring the experience for various roles – administrators, end-users, managers, etc. The key is to identify your core user segments and ensure each has a clear path to value.

Privacy concerns and data usage present another significant challenge, especially in today’s regulatory environment. Users are increasingly aware of how their data is being used, and one misstep can shatter trust and tank engagement.

The solution here isn’t to collect less data – after all, data is crucial for improving the user experience. Instead, it’s about being transparent and giving users control. Clearly communicate what data you’re collecting and why. Give users granular privacy settings. And most importantly, use the data you collect to deliver tangible value back to the user.

Going back to Spotify’s Wrapped feature – yes, it’s based on tracking users’ listening habits throughout the year. But it turns that data into a fun, shareable experience that users look forward to. It’s a win-win: Spotify drives engagement, and users get a delightful personalized recap.

Lastly, there’s the challenge of maintaining engagement as your product evolves. Adding new features can reinvigorate engagement, but it can also confuse or overwhelm existing users. How do you innovate without alienating your core user base?

The answer lies in thoughtful change management. Communicate changes clearly and early. Provide easy ways for users to learn about new features. And always tie new additions back to user value – don’t just add features for the sake of having more stuff.

Remember, overcoming these challenges isn’t a one-time task. It’s an ongoing process of listening to your users, analyzing your data, and continuously iterating. The landscape of digital products is always shifting, and with it, the nature of the challenges we face.

The Evolution of Product Engagement

As we look to the horizon, it’s clear that the landscape of product engagement is shifting beneath our feet. The strategies that worked yesterday might not cut it tomorrow. So, let’s peer into our crystal ball and explore how product engagement is evolving, and what it means for us as product leaders.

First up, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: AI and machine learning. These technologies are already reshaping how we think about engagement, but we’re just scratching the surface. In the near future, AI won’t just be a tool for personalization – it’ll be the backbone of truly adaptive products that evolve in real-time based on user behavior.

Imagine a productivity app that doesn’t just suggest your next task, but actually reconfigures its interface based on your work patterns. Or a fitness app that adjusts your workout plan daily based on your sleep quality, stress levels, and previous performance. This level of personalization could drive engagement to new heights, but it also raises new challenges around data privacy and algorithmic transparency.

Another trend to watch is the blurring of lines between different types of digital experiences. We’re moving towards a world where the boundaries between social media, entertainment, productivity tools, and e-commerce are increasingly fuzzy. Look at TikTok, for instance. It started as a short-form video platform but is rapidly becoming a major player in e-commerce and even search.

For product leaders, this means we need to think beyond traditional category boundaries. Your competitors might not be who you think they are. You’re not just competing for market share – you’re competing for user attention and engagement across a wide spectrum of digital experiences.

The rise of the metaverse and augmented reality could be another factor that has the potential to dramatically reshape product engagement. While the hype around these technologies has cooled somewhat, they still have the potential to create immersive, highly engaging experiences. 

But it’s not all about flashy new tech. We’re also seeing a counter-trend towards digital minimalism. As users become more aware of the downsides of constant connectivity, there’s growing demand for products that respect users’ time and attention. This might manifest as better notification controls, “focus mode” features, or even intentionally constrained functionality.

The key here is to find the sweet spot between engagement and respect for user wellbeing. As Nir Eyal puts it, “The antidote to impulsiveness is forethought.” Products that help users engage more intentionally – rather than just more frequently – may well be the winners of tomorrow.

Another evolution we’re seeing is in how we measure engagement. As products become more complex and multi-faceted, simple metrics like daily active users or time spent in app are becoming less meaningful. We’re moving towards more nuanced, multi-dimensional engagement scores that take into account not just quantity of usage, but quality and impact as well.

For instance, a B2B software product might start measuring engagement not just by how often users log in, but by the business outcomes they achieve. A project management tool might track not just tasks completed, but team velocity and satisfaction. This shift requires us to think more holistically about what true engagement looks like for our specific products and users.

As engagement becomes increasingly central to product success, it’s no longer just the domain of product managers or growth teams. It’s becoming a company-wide priority that touches every aspect of the user experience.

This means that as product leaders, we need to become engagement evangelists within our organizations. We need to collaborate more closely with design, engineering, marketing, and customer success teams to create cohesive engagement strategies. We need to be fluent in data analysis, user psychology, and emerging technologies. And perhaps most importantly, we need to be the voice of the user, ensuring that our engagement efforts are always in service of delivering real value.

The future of product engagement is both exciting and challenging. It promises products that are more personalized, more intuitive, and more deeply integrated into users’ lives than ever before. But it also demands that we navigate complex ethical considerations, rapidly evolving technologies, and ever-increasing user expectations.

Remember this: the core principles of good product engagement – delivering value, respecting users, and continually iterating based on data and feedback – will remain constant even as the tactics evolve. By staying true to these principles while embracing new technologies and approaches, we can create products that don’t just engage users, but truly enrich their lives.

Summing it all up

The pursuit of meaningful user engagement is both an art and a science, constantly evolving with technology and user expectations. But amidst this ever-changing terrain, two critical actions stand out for product leaders looking to elevate their engagement strategies.

First and foremost, it’s time to shift our focus from quantity to quality of engagement. The era of chasing vanity metrics and surface-level interactions is behind us. Instead, we must dive deep into the core value our products provide and align our engagement efforts accordingly. This means going beyond simple counts of daily active users or time spent in-app. Start by clearly defining what meaningful engagement looks like for your specific product and user base. Is it the completion of key workflows? The achievement of user goals? The creation and sharing of content? Once defined, build your entire engagement strategy around fostering these high-value interactions. This might require reimagining your onboarding process, refining your core user journeys, or even rethinking fundamental aspects of your product. The goal is not just to keep users coming back, but to ensure that each interaction drives tangible value for them.

Secondly, we must embrace a more holistic, cross-functional approach to engagement. The days of siloed engagement efforts are over. It’s time to break down the walls between product, design, engineering, marketing, and customer success teams. Create a shared vision of engagement that permeates every touchpoint of the user experience. This might involve establishing cross-functional engagement task forces, integrating engagement metrics into company-wide OKRs, or even rethinking organizational structures to better align with engagement goals. Remember, true engagement is not just about what happens within your product, but about the entire ecosystem of experiences you create around it.

By taking these actions, we can move beyond superficial engagement tactics and create products that genuinely enrich our users’ lives. 

The post Deep-Dive: Product Engagement appeared first on Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference.

From embracing an impact-first approach to rethinking personalization strategies, the conference highlighted the need for product professionals to adapt to a rapidly changing business environment. Speakers emphasized the importance of aligning product goals with broader business objectives, leveraging AI for enhanced customer understanding, and mastering the art of storytelling to drive product success.

The discussions also touched on the changing dynamics of product leadership, with a focus on adapting management styles to accommodate high-performing individual contributors. As the role of AI in product management continues to grow, attendees were challenged to consider how to balance technological advancements with the human touch, which remains crucial in creating meaningful user experiences.

If you couldn’t be there for it in person – you’ll have to plan for it for 2025! But I’ve highlighted some of the major themes that emerged, so you can still learn from them here. 

Let’s dig in…

Embrace an impact-first approach to product management

Let’s face it, Product Managers are constantly pulled in multiple directions, balancing the demands of various stakeholders, technological possibilities, and market trends. However, it’s critical that we don’t overlook the need to embrace an impact-first approach to product management. This is one theme that seemed to ring true in many of the talks at INDUSTRY.

This idea was particularly emphasized in Matt LeMay’s talk, “The Business is Your Business,” but it resonated throughout other presentations as well. The core principle is simple yet profound: product managers must prioritize measurable business impact above all else.

LeMay stressed that product teams are ultimately subject to the commercial realities of their business. While there’s often a tug-of-war between doing things “the right way” and meeting business demands, it’s crucial to remember that product teams bear the consequences of low-impact work, regardless of how well-executed it might be.

To adopt an impact-first mindset, product managers should:

1. Set team goals closely aligned with company goals: LeMay mentioned Christina Wodtke’s book, “Radical Focus,” and how it advises that team goals should be in direct orbit of company goals, no more than one step removed. This ensures that every team’s efforts directly contribute to the organization’s primary objectives.
2. Keep impact at the forefront at every step: From strategy to discovery to problem definition, always reflect on whether your actions still add up to the impact you seek to drive. This helps in making more informed decisions throughout the product development process.
3. Resist the temptation of low-impact work: Even if it feels like an “easy win” or “low-hanging fruit,” low-impact work comes at a cost to the product, its users, and the business at large. It’s crucial to have proactive conversations about the impact and be willing to say no to work that doesn’t significantly move the needle.

Rachel Weston Rowell’s presentation on “What Your Investors Actually Want to Know About Your Product” also emphasized the importance of connecting product work to business outcomes when communicating with stakeholders. She advised product leaders to explain their plans concisely and tie them to business impact, showing how product strategy supports the overall business story.

Similarly, Katy Faulder’s talk highlighted the need to reframe estimation requests as “Should we invest?” questions. This perspective shift encourages product managers to think beyond mere feasibility and consider the potential impact of proposed features or changes.

Embracing an impact-first approach doesn’t mean ignoring user needs or product quality. Instead, it’s about ensuring that every decision, feature, and initiative is evaluated based on its potential to drive meaningful business results. This might involve difficult trade-offs, but it ultimately leads to more focused, effective product management.

By adopting this mindset, product managers can better navigate the complexities of their roles, align their teams with organizational goals, and demonstrate the true value of their work. In an era where businesses are increasingly scrutinizing every investment, an impact-first approach to product management isn’t just beneficial—it’s essential for long-term success and relevance in the market.

Adapt leadership styles for the evolving landscape of high-performing individual contributors

Another significant theme that emerged at INDUSTRY is the need for product leaders to adapt their management styles. This is especially true in the rise of highly skilled individual contributors (ICs) in product teams. This shift, coupled with changing organizational structures and economic pressures, is reshaping the landscape of product management leadership.

Maggie Crowley’s talk on “Managing in the Age of the Super IC” was particularly illuminating on this topic. She highlighted that product management is catching up with engineering in terms of having “Super Individual Contributors” – highly experienced professionals who can drive significant impact without necessarily managing others. This trend, combined with companies’ increased focus on unit economics, is leading to flatter organizational structures with a heavier reliance on these skilled ICs.

To thrive in this new environment, product leaders need to adopt a new operating model:

1. Guide, don’t just manage: Leaders need to continuously chart the course, set context, define the bar, and co-create the future with Super ICs. It’s less about being prescriptive and more about figuring out how to collaborate effectively.
2. Coach, don’t dictate: Get into the details enough to help product managers and teams get the best work out of themselves. This approach fosters growth and autonomy among team members.
3. Edit: don’t just approve: Keep the team focused, right-size scope, and help the team say “yes” to good ideas. Act more as an editor, looking at all the good ideas and refining them to what makes the most sense.

This shift in leadership style was echoed in other talks as well. Melika Hope’s presentation on transitioning from individual contributor to manager emphasized the importance of coaching over traditional management. She stressed that coaching should be a continuous, regular process focused on achieving outcomes rather than just keeping track of tasks.

Clifton Gilley’s talk, “Product Management is a Team Sport,” further reinforced this idea. He advocated for a model where product managers, product operations, and product owners work together as a “three-legged stool,” each focusing on different aspects of product development. This structure allows for more specialized roles and enables product managers to be more strategic and externally focused.

To succeed in this new landscape, product leaders must adopt a multifaceted approach. It begins with building a team of high-performing individuals, carefully defining roles and recruiting for specific skills that align with those roles. Once the team is in place, the focus shifts to setting clear, impactful objectives that tie directly to broader business goals, ensuring everyone is working towards the same outcomes. To maintain a connection with the day-to-day work without micromanaging, leaders should implement regular check-ins and reviews, creating rituals that keep them informed and able to provide meaningful guidance. Throughout this process, embracing a coaching mindset is crucial. By offering continuous, context-dependent feedback and acting as a sounding board, leaders can help their team members reach their full potential. This approach not only develops individual skills but also fosters a culture of growth and collaboration, ultimately leading to more innovative and successful products.

This evolution in leadership style isn’t just about accommodating Super ICs; it’s about creating an environment where all team members can thrive and contribute their best work. It requires leaders to trust their team’s expertise, provide clear direction and context, and focus on removing obstacles rather than dictating solutions.

Leverage AI to enhance product research and customer understanding

Another theme at INDUSTRY, as you may imagine, revolved around the transformative potential of AI in product management, particularly as it relates to user research and customer understanding. As product teams strive to make data-driven decisions, AI is emerging as a powerful tool to gather, analyze, and interpret user feedback at scale.

Yana Welinder’s talk on “Product in the Age of AI” highlighted how AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) have ushered in a golden age of product research. These technologies enable teams to interact asynchronously with users and generate vast amounts of data from user feedback. AI can analyze inputs from various channels where users interact with a product, grouping and sorting this feedback into potential projects or user stories.

One of the most exciting applications of AI in product research is the concept of AI-driven user interviews. Traditional methods like surveys and user interviews have limitations – surveys often suffer from low response rates, while scheduling and conducting interviews can be time-consuming. AI can help overcome these challenges by:

1. Creating dynamic, personalized questions based on previous responses
2. Conducting interviews in the user’s preferred language and translating insights for the product team
3. Analyzing results much faster than humans, identifying patterns and trends across large datasets

However, it’s crucial to approach AI-driven research with caution. As Dan Chuparkoff pointed out in his talk on “AI & The Future of Product Management,” AI models can sometimes produce inaccurate or biased results, often referred to as “hallucinations.” To mitigate this risk, it’s essential to keep humans in the loop, verifying AI-generated insights and maintaining control over the research process.

Praful Chavda’s presentation on “Improving Product Sense Using AI” provided a framework for how product managers can enhance their understanding of customers using AI tools across four key aspects:

1. Understanding Customers and Users: Use AI for feedback synthesis and trend analysis
2. Domain Knowledge: Leverage AI to track competitive landscapes and market projections
3. Analytical Skills: Employ AI for prioritization, problem-solving, and anomaly detection
4. Creative Skills: Utilize AI in UI/UX design ideation

By integrating AI into these areas, product managers can gain deeper insights, make more informed decisions, and ultimately build products that better meet user needs.

However, as Katie Dove emphasized in her talk on personalization, it’s crucial to remember that AI-driven insights should complement, not replace, human empathy and understanding. The goal is to use AI to create experiences that make people feel known, involved, and valued rather than just delivering technically optimized solutions.

As AI continues to evolve, product managers who can effectively harness its power for research and customer understanding will have a significant advantage. They’ll be able to make decisions based on richer, more comprehensive data, identify emerging trends more quickly, and ultimately create products that resonate more deeply with their target users.

Master the art of storytelling to drive product success

Another theme that reverberated throughout the 3-days at INDUSTRY this year was the role of storytelling in product management. Effective storytelling isn’t just about creative writing or presentation skills; it’s a fundamental tool for product managers to align teams, engage stakeholders, and create products that truly resonate with users. (Even backstage, I heard from a past speaker of INDUSTRY how he was investing in storytelling roles within his company!)

Mark Cruth’s session, “The Art of Product Storytelling: Building the Right Thing,” emphasized that in an era dominated by KPIs, metrics, and data-driven decision-making, finding your product’s story is what will lead you to your next great feature idea. Cruth argued that while data is crucial, it’s the narrative around that data that often drives true product success.

To craft compelling product narratives, Cruth outlined four key characteristics that every story needs to make a lasting impression:

1. Relatable: People must be able to see themselves in the story, but not so directly that it becomes about them. Including elements of vulnerability and failure can make stories more relatable and impactful.
2. Emotional: Embrace passion and emotion in your storytelling. People are 22 times more likely to remember stories told with emotions, according to Stanford Professor Jennifer Acker.
3. Authentic: Share stories that are personal and important to you as the storyteller. This builds trust and connection with your audience.
4. Detailed: Add specific sensory details to your story to make it more vivid and memorable. Focus on details that create a focus for your audience.

Bukky Adebayo and Rye Castillo’s presentation on designing products for technical audiences offered a compelling case for the power of storytelling in even the most technical environments. They shared their journey of building a customer-focused culture within their engineering team, demonstrating how narrative techniques can bridge the gap between technical expertise and user needs. By weaving stories of real user experiences and challenges, they helped their engineers look beyond their own perspectives and truly empathize with their customers.

This approach opens up a world of possibilities for product managers across various domains. Storytelling can breathe life into product visions, painting vivid pictures of how a product will impact users and businesses in the future. It can transform dry customer journey maps into engaging narratives that highlight user pain points and opportunities for improvement. When creating empathy maps, stories can help team members step into users’ shoes, understanding their emotions and motivations on a deeper level. Even something as potentially mundane as a product roadmap can become a compelling narrative, outlining how the product will evolve over time to meet changing user needs and business goals. By embracing these storytelling techniques, product managers can create more engaging, user-centered products and align their teams more effectively toward a shared vision.

Product managers can more effectively communicate complex ideas, inspire their teams, and create a shared vision for their products through thoughtful storytelling. In a field where technical skills and data analysis are often emphasized, the ability to tell compelling stories can be a key differentiator, helping product managers to build better products and drive business success.

Rethink personalization strategies to create genuine user value

Personalization has been a buzzword in product management for years, but INDUSTRY highlighted the need to rethink our approach to personalization to create genuine value for users. This idea challenges product managers to look beyond algorithmic recommendations and consider the psychological aspects of personalized experiences.

Katie Dove’s presentation on “Personalization: Fad or Future? A Behavioral Scientist’s Perspective” emphasized that personalization isn’t just about delivering a functionally better product; it’s about creating an experience that makes people feel known, involved, and valued.

Dove outlined three common pitfalls in personalization efforts and provided strategies to overcome them:

1. When products don’t make you feel seen: Solution: Use callbacks to past behavior to acknowledge the user. This creates a sense of being known and understood, which drives value in relationships with products.
2. When products don’t get the user bought in: Solution: Increase perceived fit through asking questions. Contrary to the common wisdom of removing all friction, sometimes asking more questions can enhance the personalization experience by involving the user in the process.
3. When products don’t showcase their effort: Solution: Use operational transparency to draw attention to the ‘how’. People value things more when effort is apparent, so make it clear how much work went into delivering a personalized experience.

These insights align with Yana Welinder’s talk on leveraging AI for product research. While AI can provide powerful personalization capabilities, it’s crucial to maintain a human element. As Welinder pointed out, the goal should be to use AI to create experiences that make people feel understood and valued rather than just delivering technically optimized solutions.

When it comes to personalization, product managers are being called upon to rethink their strategies and create more meaningful, user-centric experiences. Rather than relying solely on background data and algorithms, the new approach invites users into the personalization process itself. This might involve asking interactive questions or allowing users to set their own preferences, giving them a sense of control and involvement. When offering personalized recommendations, explaining the reasoning behind them can build trust and further engage users in the process.

The concept of effort visibility is gaining traction, with product teams finding creative ways to showcase the work that goes into creating personalized experiences. Something as simple as a progress bar during data processing or a brief explanation of the steps taken can make users feel more valued and appreciated. While AI and automation play a crucial role in personalization at scale, finding the right balance with the human touch can make experiences feel more authentic and relatable.

Moreover, forward-thinking product managers are looking beyond basic demographic or behavioral data. They’re considering the user’s context, goals, and emotional state to create deeply personalized experiences that resonate on a more personal level. This holistic approach to personalization isn’t just about delivering the right content or features; it’s about making users feel truly understood, involved, and valued throughout their entire interaction with the product.

Summing it all up

Throughout the entire conference, one thing was clear: the role of the product manager is evolving rapidly, demanding a blend of business acumen, technological prowess, and human-centered design thinking. The future of product management lies not just in mastering individual skills but in orchestrating a symphony of capabilities that drive meaningful impact for both users and businesses.

The key takeaway for product managers is this: embrace adaptability. It’s true that AI is reshaping our workflows and will continue to play a role in our work that we may not even be fully grasping at this point. This makes the ability to adapt and evolve even more important. This adaptability isn’t just about learning new tools or techniques; it’s about cultivating a mindset that’s open to change, willing to challenge assumptions, and always focused on creating value.

As you move forward in your product management journey, here’s a call to action: Commit to continuous learning and experimentation. Whether it’s exploring new AI tools, refining your storytelling skills, or rethinking your approach to personalization, make it a priority to step out of your comfort zone regularly. Engage with your peers, seek out diverse perspectives, and don’t be afraid to try new approaches in your work.

Remember, the most successful product managers of tomorrow will be those who can adapt swiftly, think critically, and lead with empathy. By embracing these principles, you’ll not only stay ahead of the curve but also play a crucial role in shaping the future of product management.

The post Deep-Dive: Key Themes from INDUSTRY 2024 appeared first on Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference.

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Superhuman, the email service known for its speed and efficiency, has always been at the cutting edge of innovation. Founded by Rahul Vohra in 2014, Superhuman has helped users tackle their inboxes with unprecedented speed, cutting down hours of email management each week. But as artificial intelligence emerged as a game changer in the tech landscape, Superhuman had to evolve, and fast.

It wasn’t just about keeping up with the competition—it was about maintaining their core promise: delivering the fastest email experience possible. That’s when Raul and his team made a bold decision to pivot their focus toward AI, partnering with OpenAI and fundamentally transforming their approach to email.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Rahul to hear the inside story behind Superhuman’s foray into AI and how it has redefined the company’s mission. Here’s what we learned:

• Why AI became inevitable for Superhuman
• The decision-making process behind their AI strategy
• How Superhuman implemented AI features that lead the market
• Superhuman’s “Theta Mode”
• Key learnings from their experience with AI

Please enjoy our conversation with Rahul Vohra, Founder and CEO of Superhuman.

Tell us a bit about how the idea of AI first came into the picture

I actually remember it vividly. I was on This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis back in October of 2018. Jason asked me, “What does the future of email look like?” After thinking about it, I told him I saw email becoming incredibly collaborative. In the not-so-distant future, I imagined people sharing conversations, commenting, assigning tasks, and working together inside their email clients. And even back then, I knew AI would be a big part of that. I told him, “AI will summarize your emails, draft replies, schedule meetings, and maybe even send fully written emails on your behalf.” That was six years ago, and we always knew we were heading toward that day.

When did you know it was time to take AI seriously for Superhuman?

There was a pivotal moment in late 2022. It’s hard to overstate how important the launch of ChatGPT was. Everyone was talking about it, and by February 2023, it became clear that large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT would change everything about how we work. The speed at which ChatGPT grew was staggering—it reached 100 million monthly active users in just two months, which was faster than any app in history. Suddenly, people were seeing that AI could write articles, edit text, research topics, summarize long documents, translate languages—you name it.

We started asking ourselves, “What if LLMs could help with email?” If they could summarize emails, write replies, or even handle the bulk of someone’s inbox, we knew we could save our customers a ton of time. And it wasn’t just us thinking about it—our customers were asking for these features too. In fact, AI features quickly became our top user request, far outpacing anything else people were asking for.

How did the team react to this new opportunity? What kind of challenges did it raise for you?

Honestly, the opportunity was there, and the demand was crystal clear. But it immediately raised a lot of questions. None of us had experience with AI. We didn’t have any AI engineers or machine learning experts on the team, and we had to ask ourselves, “Where do we even begin?” We had so many different options for what we could build, but we didn’t know what the best starting point would be.

Even if we had those answers, we still faced the question of prioritization. Every startup has more things they want to build than they have room for on the roadmap, and this was no different. We were suddenly faced with this massive opportunity, but how would we balance it against everything else we were working on?

So how did you go about prioritizing AI in the middle of everything else?

That was the hardest part. Historically, we prioritized features in two ways: How valuable will this be for users? and How valuable will this be for the business? Usually, that made prioritization pretty straightforward. But this time, we came up empty. We couldn’t measure how valuable AI features would be for our users because we didn’t know how well they’d work, or how they’d feel once people used them. And on the business side, we couldn’t measure the value either, because we had no idea what kind of revenue or growth they’d generate.

So, we took a different approach. Sometimes in startups, you have to take a philosophical stance. We knew, deep down, that LLMs would change everything. We couldn’t predict exactly how, but we believed that this technology would transform the way people work forever. And once we made that decision, the question became: Do we follow quickly or do we lead?

That’s an interesting choice—what made you decide to lead rather than follow?

It’s actually counterintuitive, but in many cases, it’s better to follow quickly rather than lead. Look at Apple—they weren’t the first to sell retina screens, and they weren’t the first to build Face ID. But they did both so well that we now call them “retina screens” and “Face ID.” Startups, too, often find that fast followers outperform first movers. There’s a reason pioneers are said to have arrows in their backs.

But in our case, we felt that we had to lead. We asked ourselves a simple question: What do our customers deserve? The answer was clear—our customers deserved the fastest email experience ever created, and they deserved a revolutionary AI email experience, too. We felt it was our duty to push the envelope. So, we made the decision to figure out how to build AI into Superhuman alongside everything else.

How does AI fit into Superhuman’s core value of speed? Was this something that naturally aligned with your product’s vision?

Absolutely. Superhuman has always been about speed—it’s the fastest email experience in the world. Our users save hours every week. So when we started thinking about AI, the question was: How do we apply that same positioning to AI? And we quickly realized that the core positioning still worked. Most other companies don’t share our product values. They don’t build products the way we do or hold the same things to be important.

Take something like Copilot in Microsoft Office or Gemini in Gmail. Yes, they can summarize emails, but the experience is slow. You click ‘summarize,’ and it’s not pre-computed. You have to wait while it processes, and by the time it’s done, you could have just read the email yourself! It’s kind of a useless feature because it doesn’t match the pace of how people actually work.

That’s where we set ourselves apart. We decided to push the boundaries of speed even further with AI. So we pre-compute as much as possible. For example, we have Auto Summarize, which provides a one-line summary above every email, and it’s pre-computed. Then there’s Instant Reply, which drafts replies to all your emails beforehand, so when you wake up, every email in your inbox already has a response waiting for you. And then we have Ask AI, which lets you semantically query your inbox, and we’ve already vector-embedded the entire inbox beforehand, making it much faster than traditional search.

These are things that companies like Google or Microsoft simply can’t do at their scale. When you have a billion users, it’s crazy to think about pre-computing these features for everyone. But we have a more focused user base, and since all of our users are paying for the product, we have the margin to push ourselves to that next level. When you compare Ask AI in Superhuman to similar search features in Gmail or Outlook, we’re two to three times faster. That’s a huge advantage.

It sounds like a natural fit, but implementing AI into a core product must have been a huge challenge. How did you approach that?

You’re absolutely right—it was a big lift. This wasn’t just another feature; this was about changing the entire foundation of the product. And the truth is, we didn’t have the talent on the team to pull it off at first. None of us were AI engineers, and I personally had never product-managed anything remotely close to this kind of technology. It wasn’t a question of if we should go all-in on AI, but how we would do it.

I realized that I needed to step back and think deeply about the future. That’s when I decided to get out of the office for a bit. Every year, I attend this small conference called Lobby Enterprise in Hawaii. It’s a gathering of about 100 to 200 founders and investors, and the conversations are always high-level and thought-provoking. That year, the talk was all about AI and large language models. Being out there by the ocean, surrounded by this peer group of people grappling with the same questions, gave me the clarity I needed.

I realized that the world was going to change fast, and instead of being intimidated, I saw it as a huge opportunity. By the time I got back to the office, I knew exactly what we needed to do—we had to go all-in on AI, and I had to lead that charge.

How did you make the decision to fully commit to AI, and what did that mean for you personally?

We took the leap because we had the privilege of being able to. By that point, we had already spent around eight years building the fastest email experience in the world. Our customers were getting through their inboxes twice as fast as before, replying to emails one to two days sooner, and saving over four hours every week. We had built Superhuman for every platform—Gmail, Outlook, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Web—it was a ton of work. But it meant we had a strong foundation in place.

We were also lucky in our timing. I had just hired our first president, Paul, who started to take on some of the executive responsibilities, freeing me up to focus on AI. We had built some executive availability and created a situation where we could afford to do something a little crazy—like diving headfirst into AI when no one on the team had any experience with it.

That’s when Paul and I developed this new mode of operation that we called Theta Mode. It was designed to contrast with our usual operating mode, which we call Alpha Mode. In Alpha Mode, project teams have high autonomy. They define their own goals and metrics and are responsible for their own outcomes. Theta Mode, on the other hand, is reserved for special situations. It’s when an executive, in this case, me, gets embedded directly into the project team as an individual contributor, providing daily guidance, feedback, and support.

Theta Mode is like the crazy card—you don’t pull it too often. But we knew that to make AI work, we had to pull it. So I embedded myself in the AI team, alongside a designer, a marketer, and several engineers. We operated independently of all the usual company processes. It was chaotic and sometimes painful, but it worked. In less than three months, we went from zero momentum on AI to launching Superhuman AI. We beat every other email client to market, and the reviews have been nothing short of amazing.

How did your customers react to Superhuman AI?

The response has been overwhelming. People are calling it a superpower. I’ve seen reviews saying things like, “Superhuman AI drafts my responses, I just tweak them and press send.” Or “Email speed has increased tenfold.” It’s really gratifying to see that kind of feedback because it shows that all the hard work and intensity of Theta Mode paid off. We managed to pull off something that even a year ago, none of us would’ve thought possible.

What did entering “theta mode” mean for the rest of the Superhuman team and its products? And how is your AI push going today?

Going into theta mode was a huge shift for us. It meant that I, as the CEO, became deeply embedded in the AI project team. I was there daily, helping to support the team, clear blockers, and provide feedback. Essentially, I took on the role of a de facto product manager. We used theta mode sparingly, only in special situations, because it requires such a concerted effort. It’s not business as usual—it’s a mode we only pull out when it’s truly warranted, and for us, AI was one of those moments.

In the past, there have been other projects that required me to step away from running the company. A good example is when I worked on product-market fit. That was a big one. I remember I took one to two weeks off from running the company to focus solely on developing that framework. I locked myself in a room and wrote for 12 hours a day until it was done. I test-presented it, wrote it up for First Round Review, and today, it’s the most shared entrepreneurship article of all time.

But AI was even bigger. It wasn’t something I could do in a couple of weeks. It was going to take months of intense focus, not just from me, but from the entire team. We had to build a small pod to tackle it. Fortunately, we had the scale, revenue, and staffing flexibility to make it work. If we had tried to do this two years earlier, it probably would have broken the company. We wouldn’t have been able to pull off theta mode for several months at that stage.

Looking back, how would you describe the phases of AI development at Superhuman?

We think of our AI evolution in three phases.

The first phase is on-demand AI. These are features that users have to remember to activate. For example, in Superhuman, we have a feature called Write with AI, where you hit Command + J, type a few notes, and we turn that into a fully written email in your voice and tone. On-demand AI features are relatively cheap to build and run. They don’t take up much space in the UI, and it’s usually easy to get sign-off on building them because they’re straightforward. So that’s where we started.

The second phase is always-on AI. These are AI features that run constantly in the background, like Auto Summarize or Instant Reply. Every time you receive an email, we reprocess the entire thread to generate a one-line summary, bullet points, or even a draft reply. This phase is much harder to execute because it requires significant infrastructure. Since launching these features, we’ve processed north of 10 billion emails. And our user base is scaling rapidly, which means the volume of emails we need to process is growing. It’s also challenging from a prompt engineering perspective. The prompt we use for both auto-summarization and instant reply is several pages long, and OpenAI told us that, at the time, it was the largest prompt in production at that scale.

Now, we’re moving into the third phase, which is agentic AI. These are AI agents that replace entire parts of your workflow. You can imagine agents that triage your inbox, schedule meetings, and even write and send fully drafted emails. These agents will be able to reason, problem-solve, and access other tools, systems, or APIs. It’s the future we’re working towards, and I believe it will free up people to be more creative, strategic, and impactful.

Do you have any examples of how Superhuman’s AI is already working in this agentic phase?

One great example is Ask AI, a feature we recently launched. With Ask AI, I can query my entire inbox semantically. For instance, after we launched Ask AI, I wanted to collect the best customer reactions to the launch and present them to the team. I did it the old-fashioned way: I ran five manual searches, read through hundreds of emails, copied and pasted the best quotes into a Google Slides presentation. It took about 20 minutes.

But with Ask AI, I can now just hit the question mark shortcut, ask it to find me the top 10 most positive customer responses, and within seconds, it synthesizes that information from hundreds of thousands of emails and gives me a bullet-point list. I copy it, paste it into my presentation, and I’m done. It’s a task that used to take 20 minutes, and now it takes 30 seconds. That’s what agentic AI looks like.

How do you see the future of AI evolving in terms of task replacement?

Sam Altman from OpenAI has talked about the length of tasks that AI will start to replace. He’s said publicly that he believes future models like GPT-5 will replace tasks that take three to five hours. And I think that’s coming. What I just described with Ask AI is an example of a half-hour task being replaced, but we’re constantly moving up that value chain. We’re asking ourselves: What’s the next one-hour task we can replace? The next two-hour task? That’s the direction we’re heading.

What advice would you give to other product teams starting their AI journeys?

I’d say two things: First, write down a clear vision statement that your whole team can get behind. Then, measure your progress against that vision. For Superhuman, we wrote down the vision: Superhuman is the most loved and advanced AI-powered email client. Customers, press, and partners consider Superhuman to be the flagship example of applying AI to email. Our customers adore our AI features and use them heavily, and Superhuman AI saves each user hundreds of hours every year.

We finessed that statement as a team, and now it’s our guiding vision for AI. We also made AI one of the company’s four strategic objectives. I think that’s really important—writing down words you believe in and sticking to them.

The second piece is metrics. Of course, we track things like ongoing cohorted retention—how sticky a feature is over time. For example, with Write with AI, we expected a certain level of usage, but it exceeded all expectations. Users are interacting with it 25 times per week on average, which blew us away.

Then there’s Auto Summarize—users are reading the one-line summary first, often not needing to read the full email because the summary is enough. We’ve been able to measure how much faster people are clearing their inbox with this feature.

And with Instant Reply, users are sending emails twice as fast. We measure the time from starting a draft to sending the email, and those using Instant Reply are cutting that time in half.

Finally, Ask AI—early users are already using it more than they use traditional search. That’s a sign that we’re on the right track. It’s all about having a vision and measuring against it.

A huge thank you to Rahul Vohra for sitting down with us and sharing his time and expertise. You can follow along with Rahul on Linkedin here.

The post Deep-Dive: Behind the Product: Superhuman appeared first on Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference.

Bret Taylor, a tech industry veteran with an impressive resume, including executive stints at Google, Facebook, and his own startup Quip, understands this better than most. Despite his pedigree of working with tech giants, Taylor often found himself in the role of David rather than Goliath. As he shared at First Round’s CEO Summit, “I think I’m personally driven to ‘fix’ product experiences that seem backward or antiquated, which seem to be by-products of industries with heavily entrenched competition.” This mindset underscores a crucial truth: no matter the size of your company or the strength of your product, you’re always competing against established norms and expectations.

But competitive analysis isn’t just about keeping tabs on your rivals or trying to match them feature for feature. It’s about gaining a deep, nuanced understanding of the market landscape, customer needs, and the unique value your product can offer. As Jacob Koshy of Zeda.io points out, a good competitive analysis is about developing actionable insights on how to achieve sustainable competitive differentiation and deliver unique customer value.

This comprehensive approach to competitive analysis can reveal opportunities that go far beyond simple feature parity. It can inform your product strategy, guide your innovation efforts, and even reshape your understanding of what’s possible in your market. In this essay, we’ll dive deep into the art and science of competitive analysis for product managers. We’ll explore how to identify and categorize your competitors, the key components of a thorough analysis, and how to turn these insights into actionable strategies. We’ll also look at common pitfalls to avoid and best practices to adopt.

Whether you’re launching a new product or managing an established offering, mastering competitive analysis will empower you to make smarter decisions, differentiate your product effectively, and ultimately deliver more value to your customers.

Let’s dig in…

Understanding the Competitive Landscape

Your first step in mastering competitive analysis as a Product Manager or Product Leader is to gain a comprehensive view of your market’s competitive landscape. This process goes beyond simply identifying who your competitors are – it’s about understanding the broader context in which your product exists and competes.

Diana Hsieh of LogRocket emphasizes the importance of this holistic approach by contending that you don’t build products in a vacuum. When bringing a product to market, you’re introducing it to customers who have preexisting notions of what they need and want – and those notions are largely shaped by competitors. This makes it even more important to have a thorough understanding of the competitive landscape in order to feed into an effective product strategy.

Let’s start with the basics: identifying your competitors. It’s tempting to focus solely on direct competitors – those offering products or services similar to yours. However, this narrow view can leave you vulnerable to disruption from unexpected quarters. The team at Aha! adeptly points out that it’s equally important to consider indirect competitors – companies that offer different solutions to the same customer needs.

Consider the case of Kodak, once a giant in the photography industry. Kodak’s focus on direct competitors in film photography left them blind to the threat posed by digital cameras and, later, smartphones. By the time they recognized these indirect competitors as a serious threat, it was too late to pivot effectively. This cautionary tale illustrates why casting a wide net in your competitive analysis is crucial.

So, how do you identify these competitors, both direct and indirect? Jacob Koshy suggests starting with customer feedback. What other products do potential customers mention during demos? If a customer leaves your product, where do they go? This customer-centric approach can reveal competitors you might not have considered otherwise.

Another effective method is keyword research. This can be as simple as entering your product category into a search engine and seeing which products appear in the results. For a more sophisticated approach, you might track organic search rankings and analyze which companies are competing for similar ad placements.

Once you’ve identified your competitors, it’s time to dig deeper into the market dynamics. This is where Michael Porter’s Five Forces analysis comes in handy – as it can help you evaluate the competitive intensity and attractiveness of your market by considering five key factors: the threat of new entrants, the threat of substitutes, bargaining power of customers, bargaining power of suppliers, and competitive rivalry.

Let’s take a closer look at how this might play out in practice. Imagine you’re a product manager for a new project management software platform. The threat of new entrants might be high due to relatively low barriers to entry in the software market. The threat of substitutes could come from simple tools like spreadsheets or even pen-and-paper methods. Customers might have significant bargaining power due to the abundance of options in the market. Suppliers (in this case, perhaps cloud infrastructure providers) might have moderate power. And competitive rivalry is likely intense given the number of players in the project management space.

Understanding these forces gives you a clearer picture of the challenges and opportunities in your market. It might reveal, for instance, that differentiating on features alone isn’t enough – you might need to focus on building switching costs to reduce customer bargaining power or on creating partnerships to mitigate the threat of new entrants.

But the competitive landscape isn’t static – it’s constantly evolving. As Bret Taylor’s experience at Google shows, sometimes the most significant competitors are not the current market leaders but emerging players with innovative approaches. Taylor and his team didn’t just try to create a better MapQuest; they reimagined the entire concept of digital maps, creating a product that changed user behavior and expectations.

This underscores the importance of continuous monitoring and analysis. As Matt Hicks points out, especially as tech is changing so rapidly, competitive analysis needs to be refreshed periodically. It’s not a one-time exercise but an ongoing process of observation, analysis, and strategic adjustment.

As you map out your competitive landscape, remember that the goal isn’t just to understand who your competitors are but to gain insights that will inform your product strategy. Are there unmet needs in the market that your product could address? Are there emerging trends that you could capitalize on? Are there weaknesses in competitor offerings that you could turn into opportunities?

By developing a comprehensive understanding of your competitive landscape, you’re laying the groundwork for more effective product decisions. You’re not just reacting to what competitors are doing – you’re positioning yourself to anticipate market shifts, identify opportunities for innovation, and ultimately, to create products that truly stand out in a crowded market.

Deep Dive: Components of Effective Competitor Analysis

Once you’ve mapped out your competitive landscape, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and dig into the nitty-gritty of competitor analysis. This process is about more than just creating a feature comparison chart – it’s about developing a nuanced understanding of your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and overall market positioning.

Let’s start with a fundamental tool in the product manager’s arsenal: the SWOT analysis. Subjecting each primary competitor to a thorough evaluation of their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats can provide invaluable insights. This analysis goes beyond surface-level observations, delving into aspects like brand reputation, market share, distribution channels, and customer base.

Consider the case of Slack, the team communication platform. When it entered the market, established players like Microsoft and Google already had messaging solutions. However, Slack’s SWOT analysis might have revealed that while these giants had strong brand recognition (a strength), their enterprise focus left an opportunity in the startup and SMB market. Slack’s user-friendly interface and integration capabilities turned out to be key strengths that helped it rapidly gain market share.

This approach to competitive analysis goes beyond feature parity. As Diana Hsieh of LogRocket notes, “You might be 10X better, but your customers may not even understand why it’s important that you’re better. Your customers might actually be judging your product on a completely different axis, and they won’t even notice your differences.” It’s another example of how your customers may not necessarily care what features your competitors offer but how those features translate into value for the customer.

To gain this deeper understanding, Matt Hicks suggests going beyond publicly available information. Sign up for competitor products, attend their webinars, and analyze their sales and marketing materials. This firsthand experience can reveal nuances in user experience, feature implementation, and overall product quality that might not be apparent from a feature list alone.

Pricing and value propositions are another critical component of competitor analysis. It’s not just about knowing your competitors’ price points – it’s about understanding the value customers perceive in their products compared to yours. Are they offering better value for a similar price? Or are they positioning themselves as a premium option?

Marketing and positioning strategies are equally important to analyze. Pay attention to how competitors describe themselves, what pain points they claim to solve, and how they differentiate themselves in the market. This information can be gleaned from their websites, press releases, and marketing materials.

For instance, when Zoom entered the video conferencing market, it wasn’t just competing on features. Its marketing emphasized simplicity and reliability – “It just works” became a key message. This positioning helped Zoom stand out in a crowded market that included established players like Skype and WebEx. When the 2020 pandemic forced everybody to work from homes, it was Zoom – not those two platforms – that most employees found themselves essentially living inside of day-to-day. 

Effective competitor analysis requires a balance of breadth and depth. You need to look at a wide range of factors – from product features to marketing strategies – but also dig deep to understand the why behind your competitors’ choices. Why did they choose that pricing model? Why are they emphasizing certain features in their marketing?

By developing this comprehensive understanding of your competitors, you’re not just gathering information – you’re positioning yourself to identify gaps in the market, anticipate competitor moves, and ultimately, to create products that truly stand out.

Beyond Features: Analyzing the Full Competitive Picture

While product features and capabilities are crucial elements of competitive analysis, they’re just the tip of the iceberg. To truly understand your competitive landscape, you need to dive deeper, examining aspects that might not be immediately visible but can have a profound impact on your product’s success.

One often overlooked aspect is the competitor’s business model and value chain. As Alok Abhishek reminds us, the business model is the building block of sustainable competitive advantage. By overlaying the value chain and business model canvas, you can create a value curve for your specific industry, providing insights into the factors of competition and the competitive profile of each company.

When Netflix first entered the market, it wasn’t just competing with Blockbuster on the basis of movie selection. Netflix’s entire business model – DVD-by-mail with no late fees – was a fundamental reimagining of how people could access entertainment. Later, its shift to streaming wasn’t just a technological upgrade; it was a complete transformation of its value chain and business model. This approach allowed Netflix to outmaneuver competitors who were still tied to traditional distribution methods.

Another critical factor to assess is market share and growth trajectories. Understanding how your competitor ranks in the market can provide valuable context for your competitive strategy. However, it’s not just about current market share – you need to look at growth trends and potential future scenarios. If you can foresee massive changes in the market – what’s happened historically may not matter as much as how things are evolving. This can be done in a macro way, but it can also be done by closely monitoring the product roadmaps of your competitors. To that end, it’s also important to look beyond the product itself to the broader ecosystem that surrounds it. This includes aspects like third-party integrations, developer communities, and complementary products. As Bret Taylor noted in his experience at Google, sometimes the power of a product lies not just in its core functionality but in how it enables and interacts with other tools and services.

Lastly, it’s crucial to consider the regulatory and economic environment in which you and your competitors operate. Changes in regulations, economic conditions, or global events can significantly impact the competitive landscape. For instance, the introduction of GDPR in Europe had far-reaching implications for tech companies, forcing them to adapt their data practices and potentially changing their competitive positioning.

By looking beyond features to analyze the full competitive picture, you’re not just understanding what your competitors are doing today – you’re gaining insights into their strategic direction, their strengths and vulnerabilities, and the broader context in which you’re all operating. This comprehensive view allows you to make more informed decisions, anticipate market shifts, and position your product for long-term success.

From Analysis to Action: Leveraging Competitive Insights

One crucial application of competitive insights is in informing your product roadmap and feature prioritization. Diana Hsieh of LogRocket emphasizes this point, noting that understanding your competitive landscape helps you prioritize which areas to focus on – whether it’s figuring out which features to build first, which channels to prioritize, marketing or sales strategies to deploy, and much more. It’s not about simply doing what your competitors are doing. But understanding what’s happening within the competitive landscape can at least inform decisions that you make.

Competitive insights can also play a crucial role in shaping your pricing strategy. As the team at Aha! points out that understanding how customers perceive the value of competitors’ products compared to yours can help you position your offering more effectively. This doesn’t always mean lowering your price. In fact, a thorough competitive analysis might reveal opportunities to charge a premium by highlighting unique value propositions. For Zoom, it originally offered a freemium model with generous limits on the free tier. This approach, informed by an understanding of the frustrations users had with existing paid solutions, allowed Zoom to quickly build a large user base and eventually convert many of these users to paid plans.

Beyond product and pricing decisions, competitive insights can significantly enhance your sales and marketing efforts. Matt Hicks suggests creating sales battlecards, arming your sales team with information about strengths and weaknesses in competitors’ products, and how to address common customer questions and concerns.

It’s important to note, however, that leveraging competitive insights isn’t about reactively chasing your competitors’ every move. The goal is to use your understanding of the competitive landscape to make proactive, strategic decisions that position your product for long-term success. This might mean making bold moves that your competitors aren’t expecting. When Apple introduced the iPhone, it wasn’t just competing with existing smartphones in terms of features. It was creating an entirely new category of mobile devices, informed by a deep understanding of user needs and frustrations with existing mobile technology.

Competitive analysis can also inform your partnerships and ecosystem strategy. Understanding where your competitors are, strong or weak, can help you identify strategic partnerships that complement your offerings. Salesforce’s acquisition of Slack is a prime example of how competitive insights can drive ecosystem expansion, allowing Salesforce to strengthen its position against competitors like Microsoft.

In the end, the true value of competitive analysis lies not in the information gathered but in the actions it inspires. By translating your competitive insights into concrete strategies and decisions, you can create products that don’t just compete but lead.

Best Practices and Pitfalls to Avoid

As with any critical business process, competitive analysis comes with its own set of best practices to follow and pitfalls to avoid. Mastering these can mean the difference between a competitive analysis that gathers dust and one that drives real strategic value.

One of the most crucial best practices is maintaining objectivity. It’s all too easy to let biases creep in, either overestimating your own strengths or underestimating those of your competitors. It’s been well documented that when Netflix emerged as a competitor, Blockbuster’s leadership reportedly laughed off the threat, believing their established brand and extensive network of physical stores would protect them. This lack of objectivity in their competitive analysis ultimately contributed to Blockbuster’s downfall. The lesson here is clear: approach your competitive analysis with a critical, unbiased eye, even if—especially if—the results challenge your existing assumptions. While the product manager often leads a competitive intelligence process, input from sales, marketing, customer support, and engineering can provide valuable insights that can help you be even more objective. 

One common pitfall is what we might call “feature obsession.” As Diana Hsieh of LogRocket wisely notes, you may believe that your features are 10x better than your competitors – however, it may not be clear to your competitors why your product is actually best. It’s easy to get caught up in feature-by-feature comparisons, but remember that customers often make decisions based on factors beyond just feature sets.

Bret Taylor’s experience with Google Maps illustrates this point beautifully. The team didn’t just try to add more features than MapQuest; they fundamentally reimagined the user experience. “We made our users a little bit uncomfortable,” Taylor recalls, “but in doing so we reset their expectations and new behaviors came out of it.” The takeaway? Don’t just focus on matching or beating your competitors’ features. Instead, use your competitive analysis to identify opportunities to change the game entirely.

Continuous monitoring and updating of competitive intelligence is another crucial best practice. Your competitive landscape is not static; new players emerge, existing competitors pivot, and market conditions change. A one-time competitive analysis quickly becomes outdated and potentially misleading. However, be wary of the pitfall of analysis paralysis. While thorough analysis is important, don’t let the pursuit of perfect information prevent you from taking action. The goal is to be well-informed, not omniscient.

Lastly, it’s important to address the ethical considerations in competitive research. While it’s crucial to gather as much information as possible about your competitors, it’s equally important to do so through legal and ethical means. This means respecting intellectual property rights, adhering to terms of service when using competitor products, and being transparent about your identity when interacting with competitors or their customers.

By following these best practices and avoiding common pitfalls, you can ensure that your competitive analysis efforts yield valuable insights that drive real strategic value. 

Summing it all up

As we’ve explored throughout this essay, competitive analysis is far more than a checkbox exercise for product managers—it’s a critical tool for navigating the complex landscape your product lives within. But knowledge without action is merely trivia. So, as you move forward in your product management journey, consider these key takeaways:

1. Make competitive analysis an ongoing practice, not a one-time event. Markets evolve, competitors pivot, and customer needs shift. Establish a regular cadence for updating your competitive intelligence and create processes to quickly disseminate key insights to relevant stakeholders across your organization.
2. Look beyond features to understand the full competitive picture. While product capabilities are important, don’t neglect factors like business models, market trends, and ecosystem dynamics. Sometimes, the most significant opportunities for differentiation lie in reimagining the entire product experience or business model, not just in adding new features.
3. Transform insights into action. The true value of competitive analysis lies not in the information gathered but in how you use it. Whether it’s informing your product roadmap, refining your pricing strategy, or enhancing your sales and marketing efforts, ensure that your competitive insights are directly feeding into your decision-making processes and strategic planning.

By embracing these principles, you’ll be well-equipped to not just compete but to lead in your market. Remember, the goal isn’t to copy your competitors or to reactively chase their every move. Instead, use your deep understanding of the competitive landscape to chart your own

The post Deep-Dive: Mastering Competitive Analysis: A Product Manager’s Guide to Outmaneuvering the Market appeared first on Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference.

But what exactly is retention? At its core, retention refers to a company’s ability to keep its customers over time. It’s not just about preventing churn; it’s about creating such value that customers can’t imagine their lives (or businesses) without your product. For product managers and leaders, understanding and improving retention is not just a nice-to-have – it’s a critical skill that can make or break your product’s success.

The importance of retention cannot be overstated. Research from Bain & Company suggests that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%. In a world dominated by subscription models and software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, where switching costs are often low, the ability to retain customers has become more crucial than ever.

However, despite its importance, retention remains one of the least understood metrics in product management. Why? Because unless you’re a growth expert or an experienced investor, you’re often relying on anecdotes, dated blog posts, and misguided benchmarks. This essay aims to change that.

Over the next several sections, we’ll dive deep into the world of retention. We’ll explore how to measure it accurately, understand the psychology behind why customers stay (or leave), and uncover data-driven strategies to improve it. We’ll look at product-led tactics that can significantly boost retention and discuss how to build a retention-focused culture within your organization.

Whether you’re a product manager at a startup trying to achieve product-market fit or a product leader at an established company looking to accelerate growth, this essay will provide you with actionable insights to elevate your retention game. By the end, you’ll have a comprehensive understanding of not just why retention matters but how to systematically improve it.

Understanding Retention Metrics

Numbers tell stories. And when it comes to retention, these stories can be both illuminating and, at times, brutally honest. As product leaders, we often find ourselves navigating a sea of metrics, each promising to be the north star that guides our decisions. But in this vast ocean of data, which metrics truly matter for retention?

Let’s start with the most fundamental: the customer retention rate. At its core, this metric tells us what percentage of our customers stick around over a given period. It’s a simple concept, but don’t let that simplicity fool you. This number can be a powerful indicator of your product’s health and your customers’ satisfaction.

Imagine you’re running a SaaS company. You start the year with 1000 customers, gain 200 new ones throughout the year, and end with 800. Your retention rate would be 60%. This means that while you attracted new customers, you lost 40% of your original base. It’s a sobering realization, isn’t it? But it’s precisely this kind of clarity that can spark the changes needed to turn things around.

Now, flip that coin over, and you’re looking at churn rate – the yang to retention’s yin. It’s the percentage of customers who wave goodbye over a period. High churn is like a leak in a boat; ignore it, and you’ll find yourself sinking, no matter how fast you’re paddling to acquire new customers.

But retention isn’t just about keeping customers; it’s about growing with them. This is where net revenue retention (NRR) comes into play. NRR tells a more nuanced story, one that includes not just who stayed but also how their value to your business changed. Did they upgrade? Downgrade? Or keep steady? A number above 100% here is golden – it means your existing customers are not just staying but spending more over time.

Take Twilio, for example. According to Lenny Rachitsky, Twilio has reported NRR rates as high as 150% in recent years. What does this mean? It means that even if Twilio hadn’t acquired a single new customer, their revenue would have grown by 50% just from existing customers expanding their usage. That’s the power of strong retention combined with a product that delivers increasing value over time.

But what exactly constitutes “good” retention? As with many things in the product world, it depends. The benchmarks vary widely across industries and business models. As Lenny Rachitsky shares, in the world of consumer social products, retaining 25% of your users after six months might be considered good, while great would be closer to 45%. Contrast this with enterprise SaaS, where good retention might start at 70% and great companies are keeping 90% or more of their customers.

These numbers aren’t just academic; they’re stories of success and struggle. When Dropbox reported a 12-month retention rate of around 80% for its individual users, it wasn’t just a statistic – it was a testament to the essential nature of their product in users’ lives. Similarly, when Netflix reports customer retention rates above 90%, it’s not just a number, but a reflection of their ability to keep viewers engaged with a constant stream of new, relevant content.

However, it’s crucial to remember that these benchmarks are guideposts, not gospel. Your specific context matters enormously. Are you a startup just finding your footing or an established player in a mature market? Can you acquire customers cheaply through viral growth, or does each new user come at a high cost? The answers to these questions shape what good retention looks like for you.

Consider the case of Twitter. In its early days, Twitter’s retention rates were abysmal by most standards – with only about 40% of new users returning after a month. But Twitter’s leadership understood something crucial: their product had network effects that would kick in as it grew. They focused on growth, betting that retention would improve as the network became more valuable to each user. And they were right – today, Twitter boasts much higher retention rates and is a central part of online discourse.

As we navigate the complex world of retention metrics, it’s essential to remember that behind every number is a customer story. Why did they stay? Why did they leave? What made them decide to upgrade or downgrade? These are the questions that metrics prompt us to ask, and answering them is where the real work of improving retention begins.

In the sections that follow, we’ll explore how to dig deeper into these stories, understand the psychology behind customer decisions, and implement strategies to not just improve these numbers, but to create products that customers simply can’t imagine living without. Because at the end of the day, that’s what great retention is really about – becoming an indispensable part of your customers’ lives or businesses.

The Psychology of Customer Retention

Understanding the metrics behind retention is crucial, but to truly boost your retention rates, you need to understand the psychology that drives customer behavior. Why do customers stay? Why do they leave? These questions lie at the heart of effective retention strategies.

At its core, customer retention is about motivation. What motivates a customer to continue using your product month after month, year after year? To answer this, we need to look at some fundamental theories of human motivation and how they apply to product usage.

One of the most influential frameworks in this area is Self-Determination Theory (SDT), developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. SDT posits that humans have three basic psychological needs that drive motivation: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In the context of product retention, these translate to:

1. Autonomy: Users want to feel in control of their experience with your product.
2. Competence: Users want to feel that they’re effectively using your product and getting better at it over time.
3. Relatedness: Users want to feel connected to others through your product or feel that using your product connects them to a larger purpose.

Products that successfully address these needs tend to see higher retention rates. Take Slack, for example. It offers users autonomy through customizable workspaces, builds competence through progressive feature discovery, and fosters relatedness by creating a shared space for teams. It’s no coincidence that Slack boasts impressive retention rates in the competitive world of business communication tools.

However, it’s important to note that not all users are motivated by the same things. This is where the VALS (Values and Lifestyles) model, developed by the Stanford Research Institute, comes into play. The VALS model suggests that people fall into different categories based on their primary motivations: ideals, achievement, or self-expression.

Understanding which category your users predominantly fall into can significantly impact your retention strategies. For instance, if your product caters primarily to “achievers” (those motivated by status and success), features that showcase accomplishments or progress might be particularly effective in driving retention.

This understanding can help explain why some retention strategies that seem intuitive can actually backfire. Take the case of gamification, a popular trend in product design. While adding points, badges, and leaderboards might seem like a surefire way to boost engagement, it can actually decrease long-term retention if not aligned with users’ core motivations.

Amy Jo Kim, a game designer and startup coach, shares an illuminating example in her keynote talk at CMX Summit. She describes how an AI chatbot company, in an attempt to boost retention, added gamification elements like points and badges to their product. Instead of improving retention, they saw their monthly active users decrease. The external rewards had inadvertently diminished users’ intrinsic motivation to engage with the product.

This phenomenon, known as the overjustification effect, highlights a crucial point in retention psychology: external rewards can sometimes undermine intrinsic motivation. If users feel they’re using your product just for points or badges rather than for the inherent value it provides, their motivation can actually decrease over time.

Instead of relying solely on external rewards, successful retention strategies often focus on providing meaningful feedback and helping users build skills that they value. This approach aligns with the competence needed in Self-Determination Theory and tends to create more sustainable, long-term engagement.

Another key psychological principle in retention is the concept of habit formation. BJ Fogg’s Behavior Model suggests that for a behavior to occur (like using your product), three elements must converge: motivation, ability, and a trigger. Products that successfully become habits find ways to insert themselves into users’ daily routines, providing clear triggers and reducing friction (increasing ability) for key actions.

Duolingo, the language learning app, exemplifies this approach. By sending daily reminders, gamifying the learning process, and making lessons bite-sized and accessible, Duolingo has turned language learning into a daily habit for millions of users. This habit-forming approach has contributed to their impressive retention rates in the competitive education app space.

Understanding these psychological principles doesn’t just help explain user behavior – it provides a framework for designing products and experiences that naturally encourage retention. By aligning your product with users’ intrinsic motivations, providing meaningful progress and feedback, and helping form positive habits, you can create an experience that users don’t just tolerate but actively look forward to engaging with day after day.

Data-Driven Retention Strategies

In the quest to improve retention, intuition, and experience certainly play a role. But in today’s data-rich environment, product managers and leaders have a powerful ally: data. By leveraging product analytics, customer feedback, and predictive modeling, we can move beyond guesswork and develop targeted effective retention strategies.

Let’s start with product analytics. These metrics give us a window into how users are actually interacting with our product, not just how we think they’re using it. One particularly powerful tool in this arsenal is cohort analysis. By grouping users based on when they first started using your product and tracking their behavior over time, you can identify patterns in retention and churn.

For instance, you might notice that users who sign up in January tend to have higher long-term retention rates than those who sign up in July. This could lead you to investigate why – perhaps your onboarding process is more effective when teams are setting new year goals, or maybe there’s a seasonal aspect to your product’s value proposition. Armed with this knowledge, you could then develop targeted strategies to boost retention for those typically lower-performing cohorts.

But raw usage data only tells part of the story. To truly understand why users stay or leave, we need to complement quantitative data with qualitative insights. This is where customer feedback comes into play. Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, customer interviews, and feature request tracking can all provide valuable context to the patterns we see in our usage data.

However, collecting data is just the first step. The real power comes from synthesizing these various data points into actionable insights. One way to do this is through the use of customer health scores. These scores aggregate various metrics – like product usage, NPS scores, support ticket history, and more – into a single number that indicates how likely a customer is to churn or expand their usage.

Pendo, a product analytics company, emphasizes the importance of these health scores in their retention strategies. By setting up alerts for when a customer’s health score drops below a certain threshold, customer success teams can proactively reach out and address issues before they lead to churn.

But perhaps the most powerful application of data in retention strategies is in predictive modeling. By analyzing historical data on user behavior, product usage, and churn, we can build models that predict which users are at risk of churning in the future. This allows us to intervene early before the user has even decided to leave.

Spotify provides an excellent example of this approach in action. They use machine learning models to predict which users are likely to churn based on factors like listening time, playlist creation, and social sharing. For users identified as high-risk, Spotify might send personalized playlist recommendations or notifications about new releases from their favorite artists – all in an effort to re-engage them before they drift away.

It’s important to note, however, that while data is incredibly powerful, it shouldn’t be followed blindly. The key is to use data to inform decisions, not to make them for you. Always combine data insights with your understanding of your users and your product’s unique value proposition.

Moreover, be mindful of the limitations of your data. If you’re only collecting certain types of data, your insights will be inherently biased towards those areas. Strive for a holistic view that combines product usage data, customer feedback, financial metrics, and market trends.

As you develop your data-driven retention strategies, remember that the goal isn’t just to reduce churn but to create more value for your users. Every data point represents a real person using your product. By understanding their behavior and needs more deeply, you can evolve your product in ways that make it increasingly indispensable to their lives or work.

Product-Led Retention Tactics

Sometimes, the product itself is your most powerful tool. Product-led retention tactics focus on leveraging the product experience to keep users engaged, satisfied, and coming back for more. These strategies go beyond traditional customer success efforts, embedding retention-boosting elements directly into the product’s design and functionality.

At the heart of product-led retention is a simple principle: the more value users get from your product, the more likely they are to stick around. But delivering this value isn’t just about packing in features. It’s about creating an experience that resonates with users’ needs and workflows, making your product an indispensable part of their day-to-day lives.

One of the most critical elements of product-led retention is effective onboarding. The first few interactions a user has with your product can set the tone for their entire experience. Slack, for example, has mastered the art of user onboarding. When you first join a Slack workspace, you’re greeted by Slackbot, a friendly AI assistant that guides you through the basics of using the platform. This approach not only helps users get up to speed quickly but also introduces them to one of Slack’s key features – bot integrations – in a natural, engaging way.

But onboarding isn’t just for new users. As your product evolves and new features are added, continuous onboarding becomes crucial. Dropbox does this well with its contextual tooltips and walkthroughs. When a user encounters a new feature, Dropbox provides just-in-time guidance, ensuring that users are always aware of the full capabilities at their disposal.

Another powerful product-led retention tactic is personalization. By tailoring the product experience to individual users’ needs and preferences, you can dramatically increase its perceived value. Netflix’s recommendation engine is a prime example of this. By analyzing viewing history and preferences, Netflix serves up personalized content suggestions, making the platform more engaging and reducing the likelihood that users will churn due to content exhaustion.

In-app messaging is another key tool in the product-led retention arsenal. These messages, when used judiciously, can guide users to valuable features, alert them to important updates, or re-engage them if they’ve been inactive. Duolingo, the language learning app, uses in-app messages to great effect. They send gentle reminders to keep up with lessons, celebrate user milestones, and suggest new courses based on progress – all within the app itself. However, it’s crucial to strike the right balance with in-app messaging. Bombard users with too many messages, and you risk annoying them to the point of abandonment. The key is to make these touchpoints valuable and contextually relevant. 

Feature adoption is another critical aspect of product-led retention. Often, the difference between a churned user and a retained one is simply whether they’ve discovered and embraced your product’s full capabilities. Proactive feature education can make a significant difference here. Notion, the all-in-one workspace tool, excels at this with its templates gallery. By showcasing the myriad ways their product can be used, they not only help users get more value from the platform but also inspire new use cases that deepen engagement.

One often overlooked aspect of product-led retention is reducing friction. Sometimes, the best way to keep users engaged is simply to make your product easier to use. Stripe, the payment processing platform, is a master of this approach. By offering clear documentation, intuitive interfaces, and robust error handling, they minimize the frustrations that could drive users to seek alternatives.

It’s also worth noting that product-led retention isn’t just about digital touchpoints. Consider how Apple has built customer retention into the physical design of its products. The seamless integration between Apple devices creates an ecosystem that becomes increasingly valuable – and harder to leave – the more Apple products a customer owns.

Lastly, don’t underestimate the power of community in product-led retention. By fostering a sense of belonging and enabling users to connect with each other, you can create powerful network effects that boost retention. Figma, the collaborative design tool, has done this brilliantly with its community templates and plugins. Users don’t just stick around for the tool itself, but for the ecosystem of resources and connections, they gain access to.

As you implement these product-led retention tactics, remember that the goal isn’t just to keep users from leaving – it’s to continually deliver value that makes them want to stay. Every feature, notification, or design choice should be evaluated not just on its immediate impact, but on how it contributes to long-term user satisfaction and loyalty.

Building a Retention-Focused Culture

While product-led tactics and data-driven strategies are crucial for improving retention, their effectiveness is amplified when they’re part of a broader, organization-wide commitment to customer retention. Building a retention-focused culture means aligning every team – from product and engineering to marketing and customer success – around the goal of keeping customers not just satisfied, but delighted.

At its core, a retention-focused culture is about putting the customer at the center of everything you do. This might seem obvious, but in practice, it requires a fundamental shift in how many organizations operate. It means moving beyond the traditional siloed approach where acquisition is marketing’s job, product development is engineering’s domain, and retention falls solely on the shoulders of customer success.

Instead, in a retention-focused culture, every team understands their role in the customer lifecycle and how their work impacts long-term customer value. For product managers, this might mean prioritizing feature requests that address the needs of existing customers over those that might attract new ones. For marketers, it could involve creating content that helps current users get more value from the product rather than focusing solely on acquisition campaigns.

One company that exemplifies a retention-focused culture is Zappos. While not a software company, their approach to customer retention is worth noting. Zappos famously offers new employees $2,000 to quit after their initial training period. Why? Because they only want employees who are fully committed to their customer-centric culture. This dedication to customer satisfaction permeates every aspect of their business, from their lenient return policy to their legendary customer service.

Building this type of culture starts at the top. Leaders need to consistently communicate the importance of retention and back it up with their actions. This might involve changing how success is measured and rewarded across the organization. Instead of solely celebrating new customer acquisitions, highlight and reward efforts that contribute to improved retention rates.

Cross-functional collaboration is another key aspect of a retention-focused culture. When teams work in silos, important customer insights can fall through the cracks. Regular cross-team meetings or “retention task forces” can help ensure that insights from customer support inform product decisions or that product usage data guides marketing strategies.

Data transparency is another crucial element of a retention-focused culture. When everyone in the organization has access to relevant customer data – from NPS scores to product usage metrics – they’re better equipped to make decisions that positively impact retention. Amplitude, an analytics platform, practices this internally by making their product usage dashboards accessible to everyone in the company.

However, it’s important to remember that building a retention-focused culture isn’t just about processes and data – it’s also about empathy. Encourage team members to regularly use your product, to put themselves in your customers’ shoes. 37 Signals, the project management tool, takes this a step further by having its support team regularly work on internal projects using their own product. This firsthand experience helps them better understand and address customer needs.

Training and education also play a crucial role. Ensure that every team member understands the basics of customer retention, from key metrics to best practices. Salesforce, for instance, has built an entire educational program – Trailhead – that includes modules on customer retention strategies accessible to all employees.

Finally, celebrate retention wins as enthusiastically as you would new customer acquisitions. Did you reduce the churn rate by 2% this quarter? That’s worth recognizing. Did a product update lead to increased usage among at-risk customers? Shine a spotlight on the team responsible. By highlighting these wins, you reinforce the importance of retention across the organization.

Remember, building a retention-focused culture is not a one-time effort but an ongoing process. It requires consistent attention, reinforcement, and adaptation as your product and customer base evolve. But the payoff – in terms of customer loyalty, sustainable growth, and overall business health – makes it well worth the effort.

Summing it all up

As we’ve explored throughout this essay, retention is not just a metric—it’s the lifeblood of sustainable growth for any product or business. From understanding the psychology behind why customers stay to implementing data-driven strategies and product-led tactics, we’ve seen that improving retention requires a multifaceted approach.

But knowledge without action is merely potential. As you move forward in your journey to boost retention, I encourage you to take action today in the following ways:

1. Embrace a data-driven approach to retention. Start by implementing robust analytics to track not just your overall retention rate but also cohort-specific retention, feature adoption rates, and customer health scores. Use this data to identify patterns, predict churn risks, and inform your product decisions. Remember, every data point represents a real user and an opportunity to create more value.
2. Infuse retention-focused thinking into your product development process. From onboarding to feature releases, consider how each aspect of your product can contribute to long-term user engagement. Implement continuous onboarding, personalize the user experience where possible, and always strive to reduce friction. Your product itself should be your most powerful retention tool.
3. Foster a retention-focused culture across your organization. Break down silos between teams and make retention everyone’s responsibility. Regularly share retention metrics and customer insights across departments. Celebrate retention wins as enthusiastically as new acquisitions. By aligning your entire organization around the goal of delighting and retaining customers, you’ll create a powerful engine for sustainable growth.

Remember, improving retention is not a one-time effort but an ongoing journey. It requires constant attention, experimentation, and adaptation. But the rewards—loyal customers, predictable revenue, and sustainable growth—make it one of the most valuable pursuits for any product-led business.

The post Deep-Dive: Creating Effective Retention Strategies appeared first on Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference.

Imagine standing at the helm of a ship in a vast ocean. Your Product Vision is the distant shore you’re aiming for – a bold, inspiring picture of what your product could become in the future. Your Product Mission, on the other hand, is the reason you’re on the trip in the first place. Together, they form the North Star that aligns your team, inspires your stakeholders, and drives your product toward meaningful success.

But here’s the catch: despite their critical importance, Product Vision and Mission are often misunderstood, poorly executed, or worse, completely missing from many product organizations. According to Marty Cagan, Founder of Silicon Valley Product Group, most people confuse product vision with something that’s more like a mission statement. “They are confusing a slogan about their purpose with a product vision,” Marty contends. 

This confusion isn’t just a matter of semantics. It can lead to a host of dysfunctions within product teams, from the dreaded “feature factory” syndrome to the aimless “roller coaster” of pivots and redirections. Without a clear vision and mission, product teams risk building bridges to nowhere, pleasing no one in their attempts to please everyone.

In this essay, we’ll demystify Product Vision and Mission, exploring their nuances and how they differ from each other and from Product Strategy. We’ll explore why they’re so beneficial to have in place, and most importantly, we’ll provide actionable advice for Product Managers and Leaders on how to develop their own compelling Product Vision and Mission that actually works.

So whether you’re a seasoned product leader looking to refine your approach or a budding product manager seeking to make a bigger impact – this essay is meant to help you transform how you think about and guide your product’s future.

Defining Product Vision and Mission

While often misunderstood or used interchangeably, the concepts of Product Vision and Product Mission form the bedrock of successful product development. These two concepts are both important but decidedly unique. Cagan describes a Product Vision as “the future we are trying to create.” It’s not a detailed map of how to get there but rather a vivid image of what awaits at the journey’s end.

A compelling Product Vision is inherently customer-centric, focusing on how your product will transform users’ lives in the future. It’s ambitious and beyond the near term, often looking 2-5 years ahead (or even 5-10 years for hardware companies). This forward-thinking nature means that a vision can’t always be fully validated upfront – it requires a leap of faith, backed by deep customer understanding and market insights.

Product coach and consultant Christian Strunk, aptly puts it: “A product vision describes the future state of a product that a company or team desires to achieve.” It’s this aspirational quality that makes a strong vision so powerful. It not only guides decision-making but also serves as a rallying cry, inspiring your team and attracting top talent to your cause.

On the other hand, a Product Vision keeps you oriented day-to-day, ensuring every step you take is in the right direction. As product management coach, Tim Herbig, describes, a Product Mission is something that articulates your product’s purpose and how it intends to achieve that vision. It’s more immediate and actionable than the vision itself.

Your Product Mission should clearly state your product’s purpose, define its primary audience, and outline how it will deliver value. It’s the bridge between your lofty vision and your day-to-day actions, providing a constant reminder of why your product exists and who it serves.

For both Product Vision and Mission to be effective, they need to share certain qualities. They should be crystal clear and easily understood by everyone from interns to C-suite executives. They must align seamlessly with overall company goals and values, ensuring that product efforts contribute to broader organizational success. While providing direction, they should remain flexible enough to adapt as market conditions evolve. Crucially, they should set your product apart, differentiating it from competitors in a crowded marketplace.

Cagan emphasizes that a good product vision will keep you customer-focused and can be that North Star for the product organization in order to provide a common understanding of what needs to be accomplished. It’s this shared understanding that transforms a group of individuals into a cohesive, purpose-driven team.

However, the path to creating effective Product Visions and Missions is fraught with potential missteps. Many fall into the trap of confusing vision with mission, mistaking their current purpose for their future aspirations. Others craft statements so vague they provide no real guidance, like “We will make customers’ lives better through automation.” Some lose sight of the customer entirely, focusing on internal goals like revenue targets instead of user value.

Another common pitfall is creating separate visions for each team. This completely misses one of the key purposes of the product vision, which is to provide the common ‘north star’ so that every product team can stay focused on what truly matters. A fragmented vision leads to fragmented efforts, undermining the very alignment it’s meant to create.

Yet, Product Vision and Mission aren’t immutable commandments. They should evolve as you learn more about your market and customers. It’s important to treat them as living documents – as this ensures they remain relevant and inspiring as your product and company grow. In a way, this means that your Product Vision and Mission… is like a product. It should be expected to evolve and change as your company and your company’s mission do the same over time.

Differentiating Product Vision, Mission, and Strategy

It’s easy to confuse the roles of Product Vision, Mission, and Strategy. While these concepts are interrelated, understanding their distinct functions is crucial for effective product management. 

Product Vision and Mission, as we’ve discussed, serve as guiding lights for your product’s journey. But how do they differ from each other, and where does Product Strategy fit into this picture?

If the Product Vision is a distant shore you’re aiming for when navigating a vast ocean – the ultimate destination and the transformative future state you’re striving to create for your customers… and your Product Mission is the purpose of the journey… where does Product Strategy come in? Product Strategy is more like the precise route you chart to reach that shore based on the compass’s overall direction. It’s the set of choices and decisions you make to navigate toward your vision while meeting your company’s needs along the way.

Tim Herbig emphasizes that Product Strategy is about the set of choices needed to achieve your Product Vision. It outlines the most promising direction for reaching that future state. This includes decisions about which problems to solve, who will use your product, and which business objectives you’ll aim for.

One key distinction is the time horizon on which each concept operates. Product Vision typically looks far into the future, often 2-3 years ahead (or, again, even further for hardware products). Product Mission, while also enduring, is more immediate and actionable in the present. Product Strategy, however, tends to be more fluid and adaptable, often revised yearly or even quarterly based on new data and insights.

It’s important to note that these elements should flow both ways. As Herbig points out, insights and learnings from product discovery and delivery should inform and potentially refine your Vision, Mission, and Strategy. This bidirectional flow ensures that your product direction remains grounded in real-world feedback and market realities.

In practice, these concepts play distinct roles in the product development process. Your Product Vision inspires and sets the direction, much like a north star. It’s what gets your team excited to come to work each day, painting a picture of the impact your product could have in the future.

Your Product Mission keeps you focused on your core purpose and values. It helps you make decisions that align with why your product exists in the first place. When faced with tough choices or competing priorities, your mission serves as a filter, helping you stay true to your product’s essential purpose.

Product Strategy, meanwhile, is where the rubber meets the road. It’s the practical plan for how you’ll move toward your vision while fulfilling your mission. This includes decisions about target markets, key features, technology choices, and go-to-market approaches. Ben Foster, in his talk at INDUSTRY: The Product Conference, emphasizes that a good strategy is pragmatic, covering the risks and predictable obstacles you’ll face on your journey.

Real-world examples can help illustrate these differences. Consider a company like Spotify. Their Product Vision might be to become the world’s leading audio platform, connecting creators and listeners in unprecedented ways. Their Mission could be to unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art. Their Strategy, then, might involve expanding into podcasts, developing AI-driven personalization, and creating tools for independent artists to distribute and monetize their work.

It’s crucial to remember that while these concepts are distinct, they should be tightly aligned. A disconnect between Vision, Mission, and Strategy can lead to confusion, wasted efforts, and missed opportunities. Foster warns that without a clear vision and strategy, product teams risk building “bridges to nowhere,” investing in features or technologies that don’t ultimately serve the product’s purpose or move it toward its envisioned future state.

By clearly differentiating and aligning your Product Vision, Mission, and Strategy, you create a powerful framework for decision-making and prioritization. This alignment helps ensure that every feature you build, every market you enter, and every technology you adopt is moving you purposefully toward your ultimate product goals.

The Benefits of a Strong Product Vision and Mission

Imagine a ship setting sail without a destination or purpose. It might stay afloat, but it’s likely to drift aimlessly, wasting resources and leaving its crew confused. Similarly, a product without a clear vision and mission risks meandering through the market, missing opportunities, and failing to make a meaningful impact. Let’s explore the concrete benefits that a well-crafted Product Vision and Mission bring to the table.

One of the most significant advantages is the power of alignment. Marty Cagan emphasizes that a strong product vision serves as a unifying force, bringing together diverse teams and stakeholders around a common goal. This alignment extends beyond just the product team – it encompasses engineering, marketing, sales, and even external partners. When everyone understands and believes in the same future state, it becomes easier to make decisions that move the product in the right direction.

This alignment naturally leads to improved decision-making and prioritization. In the ever-evolving world of software, teams are constantly bombarded with ideas, feature requests, and potential directions. A clear vision and mission act as a filter, helping teams quickly assess which initiatives are worth pursuing and which might lead them astray. Tim Herbig notes that this clarity can significantly reduce the time spent on debates and negotiations, allowing teams to move faster and with more confidence.

Beyond efficiency, a compelling vision and mission serve as powerful motivational tools. They transform day-to-day tasks from mere to-do lists into meaningful steps toward an inspiring future. This sense of purpose can be a game-changer for team morale and productivity. Beyond boosting the current team, a great product vision is one of the most effective recruiting tools a company can have as well. It attracts talented individuals who want to be part of something bigger than themselves, helping companies build world-class teams.

Another often overlooked benefit is the enhancement of communication with stakeholders. A well-articulated vision and mission provide a common language for discussing product direction with investors, board members, and customers. They help set expectations about where the product is headed and why certain decisions are being made. This shared understanding can lead to more productive conversations and stronger relationships with key stakeholders.

A strong vision and mission also contribute to long-term stability and resilience. In tech, market conditions can change rapidly, so a strong vision and mission can provide a steady anchor. While strategies and tactics might need to evolve, a well-crafted vision can often remain relevant for years. This stability allows teams to weather short-term challenges without losing sight of their ultimate goals.

Interestingly, having a clear vision and mission can also foster innovation. It might seem counterintuitive, but by defining a future state, you open up creative possibilities for how to get there. Teams feel empowered to think outside the box, knowing that bold ideas that align with the vision will be welcomed. This balance of direction and freedom can lead to breakthrough solutions that might not have emerged in a more constrained environment.

From a customer perspective, a strong product vision and mission can significantly enhance the user experience. When a product has a clear purpose and direction, it tends to feel more cohesive and intentional. Features and updates align more naturally, creating a sense of progression and improvement that users can appreciate. This consistency can build trust and loyalty, turning users into advocates for your product.

Lastly, a well-defined vision and mission can help in avoiding common product development pitfalls. Ben Foster highlights how they can prevent teams from falling into dysfunctions like the “feature factory” syndrome (where features are built without clear purpose) or the “roller coaster” of constant pivots. By providing a clear destination and purpose, they help teams stay focused on what truly matters rather than getting caught up in short-term trends or pressures.

It’s important to note that these benefits don’t materialize automatically just by having a vision and mission statement. They need to be thoughtfully crafted, consistently communicated and genuinely embraced by leadership. When done right, however, they become powerful tools that can transform the way a product team operates, leading to better products, happier customers, and more fulfilled team members.

Developing an Effective Product Vision

“Most people fail in life not because they aim too high and miss, but because they aim too low and hit.” This wisdom from Les Brown encapsulates the essence of crafting a product vision. It’s not about playing it safe; it’s about daring to dream big and chart a course towards a truly transformative future.

But how do you go about creating such a vision? It’s not as simple as jotting down a lofty goal on a Post-it note. A truly effective product vision requires careful consideration, collaborative effort, and a deep understanding of your customers and market.

At its core, a compelling product vision paints a vivid picture of the future state you want to create for your customers. It should be ambitious yet achievable, inspiring yet grounded in reality. Christian Strunk suggests that a good vision looks far enough in the future to be transformative but not so distant as to become science fiction.

One key component of a strong vision is its focus on the customer. Marty Cagan emphasizes that a vision should describe how your product will improve customers’ lives, not just how it will benefit your company. This customer-centric approach ensures that your vision resonates with the people who matter most – your users.

To craft such a vision, start by deeply understanding your target audience. Who are they? What are their pain points? What are their aspirations? This understanding forms the foundation of your vision. Consider conducting user research, analyzing market trends, and even engaging in some speculative thinking about how your users’ needs might evolve in the coming years.

Next, think about the unique value your product can provide. What makes your approach different? How can you leverage emerging technologies or insights to solve problems in new ways? Your vision should articulate not just what you’ll do, but why it matters and how it will make a difference.

While the CEO or founder often initiates the vision creation process, it shouldn’t be a solo endeavor. Involve key stakeholders from across your organization – product managers, designers, engineers, and even sales and marketing teams. This collaborative approach ensures that your vision is well-rounded and takes into account diverse perspectives.

Ben Foster recommends starting with your current product state (point A) and envisioning where you want to be in the future (point B). Your vision should vividly describe that point B, making it tangible and exciting for your team.

Once you have a draft vision, it’s time to refine and validate it. Share it with trusted advisors, key customers, and team members. Their feedback can help you identify blind spots and refine your vision to make it more compelling and achievable.

Remember, your vision doesn’t need to detail every feature or capability. Instead, it should provide a clear direction and inspire your team to figure out how to get there. As Jeff Bezos famously said, be “stubborn on vision, but flexible on details.”

It’s also crucial to articulate your vision in a way that’s easy to understand and remember. Avoid jargon and corporate-speak. Instead, use clear, evocative language that paints a picture of the future you’re striving to create. Some companies even create visual representations or stories to bring their vision to life.

While your vision should be achievable, it shouldn’t be easy. If your vision doesn’t make you a little uncomfortable, it probably isn’t ambitious enough. Push yourself and your team to think bigger.

A vision should also not be too broad or generic. “To be the best in our industry” isn’t a vision – it’s a platitude. Your vision should be specific to your product and your customers. It should differentiate you from competitors and give your team a clear direction.

Lastly, don’t forget that a vision isn’t set in stone. While it should be relatively stable, it’s okay to revisit and refine your vision as you learn more about your market and as conditions change. The key is to strike a balance between consistency and adaptability.

Developing an effective product vision is both an art and a science. It requires creativity, insight, and a willingness to think big. But when done well, it becomes a powerful tool for aligning your team, inspiring innovation, and driving your product toward a truly impactful future.

Creating a Meaningful Product Mission

While a product vision paints a picture of the future, a product mission grounds your team in the present; it’s a rallying cry that unites your efforts and the filter through which you evaluate opportunities. But how do you craft a mission that truly resonates?

Let’s start by dispelling a common myth: a product mission isn’t just a catchy slogan or a vague statement about making the world better. As Tim Herbig points out, an effective mission articulates your product’s purpose and outlines how it intends to achieve the vision. It’s specific, actionable, and deeply tied to the value you provide to your users.

The process of creating a meaningful mission starts with introspection. Ask yourself: Why does our product exist? What problem are we solving for our users? What unique value do we bring to the table? These questions help you get to the core of your product’s purpose.

Consider the example of Google Calendar. When the team realized no other company offered a truly great calendar product, they distilled their mission into four key points: make it fast and visually appealing, simplify data entry, go beyond basic functionality, and enable easy sharing. This clear, focused mission guided their development efforts and helped them create a product that became the go-to calendar for millions.

Another key element is differentiating your mission from those of your competitors. What makes your approach unique? Why should users choose your product over others? Your mission should capture this essence, giving both your team and your market a clear understanding of your unique value proposition.

It’s also important to align your mission with your company’s broader goals and values. While your product mission focuses on your specific offering, it should nest comfortably within the larger context of your organization’s purpose. This alignment ensures that as you pursue your product mission, you’re also contributing to the company’s overall success. Avoid the temptation to make your mission statement overly complex. The best missions are clear, concise, and memorable. If team members can’t easily recall and articulate the mission, it’s probably too complicated.

Once you’ve drafted your mission, test it against real-world scenarios. Does it help you make decisions about feature prioritization? Does it provide clarity when you’re at a crossroads? A truly effective mission serves as a decision-making tool, helping you stay focused on what truly matters for your product and users.

It’s not enough to craft a great mission and keep it hidden in a document. Share it widely, discuss it often, and use it actively in your team’s conversations. Ben Foster suggests using your mission as a tool to align not just your product team but also stakeholders across the organization.

Remember, while your vision might evolve slowly, your mission can be more dynamic. As you learn more about your users, as market conditions change, or as you achieve certain goals, don’t be afraid to refine your mission. The key is to ensure it always accurately reflects your product’s current purpose and direction.

Finally, don’t underestimate the power of emotion in your mission. While it should be grounded in practical purpose, a touch of inspirational language can make your mission more compelling. After all, you’re not just building a product; you’re working to make a meaningful difference in your users’ lives.

Implementing and Maintaining Product Vision and Mission

Crafting a compelling product vision and mission is only half the battle. The real challenge lies in bringing these guiding principles to life in your day-to-day operations. It’s one thing to have lofty goals pinned to a wall; it’s another to have them actively shaping decisions and driving progress.

So, how do you bridge the gap between aspiration and action?

Start by weaving your vision and mission into the fabric of your team’s routine. During sprint planning sessions, challenge your team to articulate how each proposed feature or enhancement aligns with the broader vision. This exercise isn’t about rigid adherence but about fostering a shared understanding of how individual efforts contribute to the bigger picture.

Consider the approach of successful companies like Amazon. They don’t just pay lip service to their vision of being “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” Instead, they bake it into their processes, like leaving an empty chair in meetings to represent the customer. What unique rituals or practices could you introduce to keep your vision and mission at the forefront?

But beware of the “vision mirage” – the temptation to focus solely on future possibilities at the expense of present realities. A balanced approach is key. Tim Herbig advocates for allocating your efforts across three buckets: innovation (vision-driven initiatives), iteration (improvements to existing features), and operation (maintenance and technical debt). This framework ensures you’re making progress toward your vision while still addressing immediate needs and maintaining a healthy product.

Your product vision and mission aren’t just internal tools – they’re powerful assets for aligning with external stakeholders too. Use them to guide conversations with customers, partners, and investors. When everyone understands and buys into your direction, it becomes easier to navigate challenges and secure support for your initiatives.

As you progress, you’ll inevitably face moments when reality seems at odds with your vision. Maybe market conditions shift, or new technologies emerge. In these moments, resist the urge to immediately abandon the ship. Instead, view these challenges as opportunities to reassess and potentially refine your course.

In a way, implementing your vision and mission is as much about culture as it is about strategy. Foster an environment where bold thinking is encouraged, where failure in pursuit of the vision is seen as a learning opportunity, and where everyone feels empowered to contribute ideas that could shape the future of your product.

By actively implementing and maintaining your product vision and mission, you transform them from abstract concepts into living, breathing forces that propel your product forward. They become the invisible hand guiding every decision, the shared language that unites your team, and the beacon that keeps you on course, even in the stormiest of seas.

Summing it all up

Product Vision and Mission stand as beacons, guiding teams through the fog of daily challenges and market uncertainties. We’ve explored how these powerful concepts when properly understood and implemented, can transform the way product teams operate, innovate, and deliver value to their customers.

A compelling Product Vision paints a vivid picture of the future, inspiring teams to reach beyond the immediate and strive for transformative impact. It’s the North Star that keeps everyone aligned, even as the path to reach it may shift and change. The Product Mission, on the other hand, grounds this aspiration in the present, providing a clear purpose and direction for day-to-day decisions and actions.

Together, Vision and Mission create a framework that fosters alignment, enhances decision-making, and fuels innovation. They’re not just corporate jargon or wall decorations but living, breathing elements that should permeate every aspect of product development – from sprint planning to stakeholder communications.

However, the journey doesn’t end with crafting these statements. The real challenge – and opportunity – lies in bringing them to life within your organization. It requires consistent effort, open communication, and a willingness to adapt as you learn and grow.

As you move forward in your product journey, consider these calls to action:

1. Evaluate your current Product Vision and Mission. Are they truly inspiring and actionable? Do they resonate with your team and align with your company’s broader goals? If not, it’s time to revisit and refine them.
2. Integrate your Vision and Mission into your daily processes. Find creative ways to keep them at the forefront of your team’s mind, whether through dedicated rituals, visual reminders, or regular discussion points in meetings.
3. Use your Vision and Mission as decision-making tools. When faced with tough choices or competing priorities, refer back to these guiding principles. They should help clarify which path aligns best with your ultimate goals.

By embracing the power of Product Vision and Mission, you’re not just building a product – you’re charting a course toward meaningful impact and lasting success. So take that first step today. Gather your team, start the conversation, and begin the journey toward a more focused, inspired, and effective product development process. The future of your product – and the value it brings to the world – depends on it.

The post Deep-Dive: Product Vision + Mission appeared first on Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference.

But why are product launches so critical? Consider this: according to a study by CB Insights, 42% of startups fail due to a lack of market need. A well-executed launch isn’t just about fanfare—it’s about validating your product’s place in the market, capturing user attention, and setting the stage for sustainable growth. It’s your product’s debut on the grand stage, and first impressions matter more than ever in our fast-paced, option-saturated digital landscape.

As a product manager, you’re not just a participant in this process—you’re the conductor. Your role transcends traditional boundaries, requiring you to be part strategist, part communicator, and part fortune-teller. You need to align diverse teams, from engineering to marketing, around a unified vision. You must anticipate market reactions, competitor moves, and potential pitfalls. And perhaps most challengingly, you need to make critical decisions with imperfect information, often under intense time pressure.

The stakes are high, but so are the rewards. Your efforts during the launch phase can set the trajectory for your product’s entire lifecycle.

In this essay, we’ll dive deep into the product manager’s role in crafting and executing a successful product launch. We’ll explore:

1. How to develop a rock-solid pre-launch strategy that sets you up for success
2. The intricacies of managing product development and testing to ensure launch readiness
3. Crafting a go-to-market plan that will make your product impossible to ignore
4. Executing your launch with precision and adaptability
5. Post-launch optimization strategies to maintain momentum and drive continuous improvement
6. Tools and Techniques to effectively launch your product.

Whether you’re preparing for your first launch or your fifteenth, whether you’re bringing a revolutionary new product to market or updating an existing offering, this playbook will provide you with actionable insights and battle-tested strategies to maximize your chances of success.

Remember, as product guru Marty Cagan often says, “The job of the product manager is to discover a product that is valuable, usable, and feasible.” A successful launch is where these three elements converge—where the value you’ve created meets the market in a way that’s both impactful for users and viable for your business.

So, let’s dig in…

Pre-Launch Strategy: Setting the Stage for Success

The success of a product launch is often determined long before the actual release date. As a product manager, your pre-launch strategy is your foundation—get it right, and you’ll be building on solid ground. 

First and foremost, you need to set clear goals and objectives. Before diving into the minutiae of launch planning, you need a north star. The Aha! team emphasizes the importance of answering two crucial questions: What does a successful product launch look like, and how will your executive team measure the product launch success? Your goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Instead of a vague goal like “increase the user base,” aim for something concrete like “acquire 10,000 new active users within the first-month post-launch.” Remember, your launch goals should directly support broader business objectives, whether that’s entering a new market segment, increasing revenue from existing customers, or improving brand perception.

With your goals in place, it’s time to conduct thorough market research. No product exists in a vacuum, and your launch strategy should be informed by a deep understanding of your market. This includes analyzing your competitors, understanding their positioning, and learning from their successes and failures. Equally important is customer research to identify the pain points your product addresses and how potential customers currently solve these problems. Don’t forget to consider broader industry or technological trends that might impact your product’s reception. The insights you gain from this research will be invaluable in shaping your positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategy.

Before investing heavily in launch preparations, it’s crucial to validate your product-market fit. To do this, consider beta testing with a segment of your target audience, analyzing usage data and feedback from early adopters, and conducting customer interviews to gauge enthusiasm and willingness to pay. The goal here isn’t just to confirm that people like your product but that they need it enough to overcome the inertia of their current solutions.

With your goals set and market understanding in place, it’s time to develop your comprehensive launch strategy. This should cover launch timing, considering factors like market readiness, competitive landscape, and internal capabilities. As the Atlassian team points out, timing can make or break a launch—a European launch in summer might fall flat when most people are on vacation. You’ll also need to decide on the type of launch: will it be a big bang or a phased rollout, a closed beta or an open release? Your strategy should also outline your key messaging and positioning, clearly articulating how you’ll differentiate your product and what your unique value proposition is. Remember, your launch strategy should be a living document, flexible enough to adapt as you gather more information and face inevitable hurdles.

A successful launch is a team effort, and as the product manager, you’ll need to create and lead a cross-functional launch team. This team might include engineering to ensure the product is ready and handle any last-minute fixes, marketing to craft and execute the launch campaign, sales to prepare for and handle the influx of interested customers, customer support to be ready for user questions and issues, and legal to ensure all compliance and regulatory requirements are met. Each team member should have clear responsibilities and understand how their work fits into the bigger picture. Regular check-ins and transparent communication will be key to keeping everyone aligned and on track.

Finally, take the time to define your target audience and develop detailed buyer personas – or Jobs to be Done “jobs.”. While you likely had a target audience in mind during product development, now’s the time to refine your understanding. Go beyond basic demographics to include pain points and challenges, goals and motivations, buying behaviors and preferences, and typical objections or concerns. These personas or “jobs” will guide everything from your messaging to your choice of marketing channels, helping ensure that your launch resonates with the people most likely to become your early adopters and champions.

By investing time and effort in a thorough pre-launch strategy, you’re not just preparing for a single event—you’re laying the groundwork for your product’s long-term success. Sabah Qazi notes in her article for Mind the Product that setting clear milestones before the launch is essential to monitor progress and ensure that the launch operation is on track. With a solid pre-launch strategy in place, you’ll be well-positioned to navigate the critical phase of product development and testing, ensuring your product is truly ready for its big debut.

Product Development and Testing: Ensuring Launch Readiness

With a solid pre-launch strategy in place, it’s time to focus on the heart of your product: development and testing. As a product manager, your role in this phase is crucial. You’re not just overseeing the process; you’re the bridge between the development team and the business objectives, ensuring that the product being built aligns with the vision and is truly ready for launch.

Overseeing the development process requires a delicate balance of leadership and collaboration. Your job is to keep the team focused on the most critical features that align with your launch goals and user needs. This often means making tough decisions about what to include in the initial launch and what to save for future iterations. Prioritization becomes your watchword. Use techniques like the MoSCoW method (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won’t have) to categorize features and functionalities. This helps maintain clarity on what’s essential for launch and what can be developed post-launch.

As development progresses, it’s crucial to implement effective testing strategies. This goes beyond just checking for bugs; it’s about validating that the product meets user needs and expectations. Beta testing is a powerful tool in your arsenal. Select a group of users that represents your target audience and give them early access to your product. Their feedback can be invaluable, often uncovering use cases or issues you hadn’t considered. However, be strategic in how you gather and implement this feedback. Not every suggestion needs to be acted upon immediately; your job is to filter and prioritize based on your launch goals and overall product strategy.

In today’s data-driven world, making decisions based on product analytics is more important than ever. Implement analytics tools early in the development process to gather usage data. This quantitative data complements the qualitative feedback from beta testers, giving you a more complete picture of how users interact with your product. Pay attention to metrics like user engagement, task completion rates, and feature adoption. These insights can guide last-minute tweaks to the user experience or inform your launch messaging.

Coordinating with engineering is a critical aspect of your role during this phase. Regular check-ins are essential to stay updated on progress and potential roadblocks. Foster an environment of open communication where engineers feel comfortable raising concerns or suggesting improvements. Your role is often that of a translator, helping the engineering team understand business and user needs and explaining technical constraints or opportunities to other stakeholders.

One of the most challenging decisions you’ll face is determining when the product is truly ready for launch. It’s rare for a product to feel completely “finished,” and there’s always the temptation to add just one more feature or fix one more minor bug. This is where your leadership skills come into play. You need to balance the desire for perfection with the realities of time and resource constraints. Remember, launching doesn’t mean the end of development; it’s often just the beginning of a new phase of continuous improvement.

A useful framework for assessing launch readiness is to focus on your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or, better yet, your Minimum Lovable Product (MLP). The MVP concept, popularized by Eric Ries, emphasizes launching with the minimum set of features needed to solve the core user problem and gather meaningful feedback. The MLP takes this a step further, ensuring that this core offering is not just functional but delightful enough to create loyal, enthusiastic users from the start.

As you approach your launch date, conduct a thorough review of your product against your initial launch goals and success criteria. Have you met the key objectives you set out in your pre-launch strategy? Are there any critical issues that could significantly impact user experience or perception? Be prepared to make tough calls if certain features aren’t meeting quality standards. It’s often better to delay a feature than to launch with something that could harm your product’s reputation.

Finally, don’t forget about the non-product elements that are crucial for a successful launch. Ensure that supporting materials like documentation, tutorials, and FAQs are ready. Verify that your customer support team is trained and prepared to handle user queries. Check that your infrastructure can handle the expected load, especially if you’re anticipating a surge of users at launch.

By ensuring thorough development and rigorous testing, you’re not only preparing for a successful launch but also laying the groundwork for sustained product growth and user satisfaction in the long term.

Go-to-Market Planning: Crafting the Launch Blueprint

With your product development well underway and launch readiness in sight, it’s time to shift gears to go-to-market planning. This phase is where your strategic thinking as a product manager really shines as you craft the blueprint that will introduce your product to the world.

At the core of your go-to-market plan is your product positioning and messaging. This isn’t just about listing features; it’s about articulating the unique value your product brings to your target audience. Start by revisiting your buyer personas and the pain points your product addresses. Your messaging should clearly communicate how your product solves these problems in a way that resonates emotionally with your audience. Remember, people don’t buy products; they buy better versions of themselves. Frame your messaging around the transformation your product enables.

While it’s true that it may be difficult to lock down timing in the very beginning stages of building a product, eventually – you’re likely going to need to develop a detailed launch timeline with key milestones. This is crucial for keeping all moving parts in sync. Work backward from your intended launch date, mapping out all necessary activities and their deadlines. This timeline should include not just product-related milestones but also marketing activities, sales enablement, and customer support preparation. Be sure to build in buffer time for unexpected delays or last-minute adjustments. Your timeline should be a living document, updated regularly as you progress towards launch.

A multi-channel marketing plan is essential for reaching your target audience wherever they are. This might include content marketing, social media campaigns, email marketing, paid advertising, and PR efforts. Each channel should be chosen strategically based on where your target users spend their time and how they prefer to consume information. Remember, the goal isn’t just to be everywhere but to be in the right places with the right message.

Preparing your sales and support teams is a critical, often underestimated aspect of launch planning. These teams are your front line, directly interacting with customers and shaping their perception of your product. Develop comprehensive training materials that not only explain your product’s features but also dive deep into its value proposition and how it addresses customer pain points. Create battle cards that arm your sales team with responses to common objections and competitive comparisons. For the support team, prepare detailed FAQs and troubleshooting guides to ensure they can provide stellar customer service from day one.

Engaging with influencers and the press can significantly amplify your launch impact. Identify key influencers in your industry who align with your product values and whose audience overlaps with your target market. Begin building relationships with these influencers well before your launch, giving them early access to your product when possible. For press outreach, craft a compelling story around your product launch. This isn’t just about the product itself but about the problem it solves and the impact it can have. Prepare a press kit with all necessary information, high-quality visuals, and potential angles for stories.

Choosing the right launch timing and approach is a strategic decision that can significantly impact your launch success. Consider factors like industry events, seasonal trends, and competitor activities. For instance, launching around a major industry conference can provide a built-in audience and media attention. However, you’ll also face more competition for attention. Alternatively, choosing a quieter period might give you more space to control the narrative around your launch.

Your launch approach should align with your product type and target audience. A big bang launch with lots of fanfare might be appropriate for a revolutionary new product, while a soft launch or phased rollout could be better for an iteration of an existing product or for testing the waters in a new market segment. Whatever approach you choose, ensure it aligns with your overall business objectives and the expectations you’ve set with stakeholders.

Throughout your go-to-market planning, maintain open lines of communication with all involved teams. Regular check-ins and status updates keep everyone aligned and allow for quick adjustments as needed. Remember, as the product manager, you’re the central hub connecting all these moving parts. Your ability to coordinate effectively across teams is key to a cohesive and impactful launch.

A well-crafted go-to-market plan ensures that when your product does hit the market, it does so with clarity, purpose, and maximum impact.

Launch Execution: From Plan to Reality

The moment of truth has arrived. All your meticulous planning and preparation now culminate in the actual launch of your product. This phase is where your skills as a product manager are put to the ultimate test as you guide your product from behind-the-scenes development into the spotlight of public scrutiny.

As you approach the launch date, your focus shifts to coordinating pre-launch activities designed to build anticipation. This is the time to start teasing your product to your target audience. Leverage the relationships you’ve built with influencers and press contacts to start generating buzz. Consider creating a waitlist or early access program to build excitement and give you a ready pool of eager first users. These early adopters can provide valuable feedback and potentially become your product champions.

On the internal front, conduct final readiness checks with all teams. Ensure that your sales team is fully trained and equipped with the necessary materials to start selling immediately post-launch. Verify that your support team is prepared to handle the influx of new user questions and potential issues. Double-check that all marketing materials are finalized and scheduled for release at the appropriate times.

As the launch day dawns, your role shifts to that of a conductor, orchestrating the various elements of your launch plan. Be prepared for a high-energy, potentially stressful day. Set up a command center where key team members can gather to monitor the launch in real time. This allows for quick decision-making and problem-solving as issues inevitably arise.

Monitoring early performance is crucial during the first hours and days of your launch. Keep a close eye on key metrics you’ve identified as indicators of launch success. This might include website traffic, sign-up rates, initial user engagement, or sales figures. Be ready to adapt quickly if you’re not seeing the results you expected. Having predetermined thresholds for these metrics can help you make objective decisions about when to intervene or adjust your approach.

Equally important is monitoring for and addressing any issues in real time. No matter how thorough your testing, some problems will only become apparent when your product is in the hands of real users at scale. Have your engineering team on standby to quickly address any technical issues that arise. Your support team should have clear escalation paths for reporting significant problems or trends in user feedback.

While it’s easy to get caught up in troubleshooting and performance monitoring, don’t forget to celebrate the launch with your team. This is a significant milestone that represents the culmination of months of hard work. Take a moment to acknowledge the efforts of everyone involved. This not only boosts morale but also reinforces the collaborative spirit that will be crucial for the ongoing success of your product.

As you move into the immediate post-launch period, your focus should be on maintaining momentum. The energy and attention generated by your launch is a valuable resource – use it wisely. Be ready to communicate follow-up with early users, soliciting their feedback and addressing their initial experiences. If you’ve launched with a minimal feature set, now is the time to start communicating your product roadmap to keep users engaged and excited about what’s coming next.

Keep a close eye on user behavior and feedback during this period. Are users engaging with the product in the ways you expected? Are there features they’re loving or struggling with? This real-world data is invaluable for informing your immediate post-launch iterations and longer-term product strategy.

Remember, a successful launch is not the end goal – it’s the beginning of your product’s journey in the market. The actions you take in the weeks following the launch are crucial for converting initial interest into long-term success. Be prepared to iterate quickly, addressing pain points and capitalizing on unexpected opportunities that arise from real-world usage.

Stay calm under pressure, be decisive when issues arise, and keep your team motivated and focused on the ultimate goal of delivering value to your users.

A well-executed launch sets the stage for your product’s success, but it’s the sustained effort and adaptability in the following weeks and months that will ultimately determine its place in the market.

Tools and Techniques for Effective Launch Management

As a product manager orchestrating a launch, your ability to effectively manage information, tasks, and team collaboration can make the difference between a smooth launch and a chaotic one. Let’s explore some essential tools and techniques that can enhance your launch management capabilities.

Project management tools are the backbone of effective launch coordination. Platforms like Jira, Asana, or Trello can help you create and manage task boards, assign responsibilities, and track progress across teams. These tools allow you to visualize your launch timeline, set dependencies between tasks and quickly identify potential bottlenecks. When choosing a project management tool, consider its integration capabilities with other software your team uses, as well as its reporting features, which can be crucial for keeping stakeholders informed.

For documentation and collaboration, consider using a wiki-style platform like Confluence. This type of tool is invaluable for creating and maintaining your launch playbook, housing product specifications, and collaborating on marketing materials. The ability to comment, version control, and easily link related documents can significantly streamline your information management and ensure everyone has access to the latest, most accurate information.

Communication is key during a launch, and having a centralized communication platform can prevent important information from getting lost in email threads. Tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams allow for real-time communication, file sharing, and the creation of dedicated channels for different aspects of your launch. These platforms can be particularly useful on launch day for quick problem-solving and updates.

For managing customer feedback and support during and after launch, consider using a customer relationship management (CRM) system integrated with a help desk solution. This combination allows you to track customer interactions, manage support tickets, and gather valuable feedback in one place. Look for solutions that offer analytics capabilities to help you identify trends in customer issues or requests.

Data analytics tools are crucial for measuring the success of your launch and informing post-launch iterations. Google Analytics can provide valuable insights into website traffic and user behavior, while more specialized product analytics tools like Pendo can offer deeper insights into how users are interacting with your product. The key is to set up your analytics infrastructure well before launch, ensuring you’re capturing all relevant data from day one.

Beyond digital tools, certain techniques can enhance your launch management effectiveness. One such technique is the creation of a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) matrix for your launch. This framework clearly delineates roles and responsibilities across your launch activities, reducing confusion and ensuring accountability.

Another useful technique is the implementation of daily stand-up meetings as you approach launch day. These brief, focused meetings allow team members to share progress, discuss blockers, and align on priorities. They’re particularly valuable in the final weeks before launch when the pace of activities intensifies.

Scenario planning is another powerful technique for launch preparation. Work with your team to identify potential risks or challenges that could arise during launch and develop response plans for each scenario. This proactive approach can significantly reduce stress and improve your team’s ability to handle unexpected issues on launch day.

Finally, consider implementing a launch readiness checklist. This comprehensive list should cover all critical aspects of your launch, from product functionality to marketing materials to customer support readiness. Regularly reviewing this checklist with your team can help ensure nothing falls through the cracks as you approach launch day.

Remember, the most effective tools and techniques are those that fit well with your team’s working style and the specific needs of your product and market. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different approaches and tools to find what works best for your situation. The goal is to create a launch management system that enhances your team’s capabilities, improves coordination, and ultimately contributes to a successful product launch.

By leveraging these tools and techniques, you can create a more structured, transparent, and efficient launch process. This not only reduces stress and minimizes the risk of oversights but also allows you to focus more of your energy on the strategic aspects of your launch, ultimately increasing your chances of success in the market.

Summing it all up

Now that you’re armed with strategies for pre-launch planning, development oversight, go-to-market execution, and post-launch optimization, it’s time to put this knowledge into action.

Here are three key steps you can take right now to help prepare for a winning product launch:

1. Conduct a Launch Audit: Before your next product launch, take a step back and assess your current launch process. Identify gaps in your strategy, areas where communication breaks down, or stages where you consistently face challenges. Use the insights from this guide to create a comprehensive launch checklist tailored to your organization’s needs. This audit will serve as a roadmap for improvement, ensuring each launch is more refined than the last.
2. Build Your Launch A-Team: Successful launches are a team sport. Invest time in cultivating relationships across your organization—from engineering and design to marketing and customer support. Organize a “launch summit” where representatives from each department can contribute their expertise to your launch playbook. By fostering a culture of collaborative launching, you’ll not only improve your products’ chances of success but also position yourself as a leader who can unite diverse teams toward a common goal.
3. Embrace Continuous Learning: The product landscape is ever-evolving, and so too should your launch strategies. Commit to ongoing education in product management and launch techniques. This could involve attending industry conferences, participating in product management communities, or even starting a launch-focused book club within your organization. Share your learnings and experiences with peers, and don’t be afraid to experiment with new approaches in your launches.

Remember, every product launch is an opportunity—not just to introduce a new offering to the market but to refine your skills, strengthen your team, and push the boundaries of what’s possible. By continuously honing your launch process, you’re not just setting your products up for success; you’re establishing yourself as an indispensable leader in your organization and the broader product management community.

The stage is set – and your launch awaits. It’s time for your product and your expertise to shine.

The post Deep-Dive: A Product Manager’s Guide to Product Launches appeared first on Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference.

The growing importance of ethics in product management stems from recognizing that great responsibility comes with great power. As product leader, Kasia Chmielinski, aptly put it in their keynote talk at the Virtual edition of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference, “Digital products can have a significant impact on the users—from saving lives to exposing people to harmful content, encouraging unhealthy habits, and contributing to climate change.” This stark reality underscores the need for product managers to consider not just what can be built but what should be built.

Key ethical challenges in tech today span a wide spectrum. Data privacy and user consent have become critical concerns in an era of big data and personalized experiences. Algorithmic bias threatens to perpetuate and amplify societal inequalities. The addictive nature of some digital products raises questions about digital well-being and mental health. Environmental sustainability, accessibility, and the implications of AI-driven decision-making add further complexity to the ethical landscape.

In this context, ethical product management emerges as a moral imperative and a crucial factor for long-term success, user trust, and positive societal impact. This essay explores the multifaceted nature of ethical product management, providing frameworks, insights, and practical approaches for navigating this complex terrain.

By examining the challenges, exploring decision-making frameworks, and exploring ways to build ethical product cultures, we will equip product managers with the tools they need to create products that meet business objectives, uphold ethical standards, and contribute positively to society. In doing so, we pave the way for a future where technology serves humanity’s best interests, fostering trust, well-being, and progress.

Understanding Ethical Product Management

At its essence, ethical product management is creating and maintaining products that meet business goals and prioritize user well-being and broader societal benefits. Roman Pichler eloquently captures this concept, stating, “An ethical product is an offering that does not cause any harm, neither to its users nor the planet.” This definition sets a high standard, challenging product managers to look beyond mere functionality and profitability to consider the far-reaching implications of their work.

Product managers must navigate a complex landscape fraught with tensions between business objectives and ethical considerations. On one side, there’s the pressure to generate revenue, meet growth targets, and stay competitive in a fast-paced market. On the other, there’s an increasing recognition of the profound impact that products can have on individuals and society. This dichotomy forms the core challenge of ethical product management.

In addressing this challenge, several key principles emerge as guideposts for ethical product management. User-centricity sits at the forefront, emphasizing prioritizing genuine user needs and well-being over short-term business gains. Transparency follows closely, calling for openness and honesty about product functionalities, data collection, and usage. Fairness and inclusivity demand that products be accessible and beneficial to diverse user groups, actively working to avoid bias and discrimination.

Privacy and data protection have become increasingly critical in our data-driven world, requiring product managers to handle user information with the utmost respect and responsibility. Environmental sustainability pushes the consideration of ecological impact throughout a product’s lifecycle. Lastly, social responsibility asks product managers to evaluate and strive for positive societal impact through their products.

These principles align closely with the approach Josh Hart describes at The Lego Group, where the creation of ethical product principles serves as a compass for decision-making. By embedding these principles into the fabric of product development, teams can more consistently navigate the complex ethical terrain they face.

The role of product managers in this ethical landscape is pivotal. As AI product leader, John Haggerty, points out, Product managers play a critical role in championing ethical values and promoting a culture of ethical decision-making within the organization. Their unique position, bridging various departments and stakeholders while maintaining a holistic view of the product, places them at the center of ethical decision-making.

This central role requires product managers to balance multiple, often competing, considerations. They must meet business objectives and growth goals while genuinely addressing user needs and improving lives. They need to leverage available technologies responsibly, always considering their decisions’ potential positive and negative impacts. This balancing act demands a strong ethical framework and the ability to make principled decisions, often in the face of conflicting pressures.

To navigate these challenges effectively, product managers must develop a keen ethical sensibility. This involves cultivating deep empathy, truly understanding and considering the perspectives of diverse user groups. It requires developing foresight to anticipate potential ethical issues before they arise. Collaboration becomes crucial, involving engaging with various stakeholders to gain different ethical perspectives. Continuous learning and staying informed about evolving ethical issues in technology and best practices in addressing them are essential.

Moreover, ethical considerations should be embedded into every stage of the product development lifecycle. From ideation and design through development, testing, launch, and ongoing maintenance, ethical thinking should be a constant companion to product decisions.

It’s crucial to recognize that ethical product management is not a one-time checkbox but an ongoing process. As technologies evolve and societal norms shift, what’s considered ethical may change. Therefore, product managers must remain vigilant and adaptable, constantly reassessing the ethical implications of their products. By embracing these principles and responsibilities, product managers can lead the way in creating products that succeed in the market and contribute positively to society. 

Understanding and implementing ethical product management is no longer optional—it’s a necessity for creating sustainable, trusted, and truly valuable products. Kasia Chmielinski stresses that it’s important that Product Managers take responsibility for the ramifications of the products they create and make ethically sound product decisions. This responsibility forms the cornerstone of ethical product management, guiding the creation of products that genuinely improve lives while navigating the complex ethical challenges of our digital age.

Ethical Challenges in Modern Product Management

Data privacy and user consent are among the most pressing issues in modern product management. With the increasing sophistication of data collection and analysis techniques, products can gather unprecedented information about their users. While this data can drive personalization and improve user experiences, it also raises significant privacy concerns. John Haggerty emphasizes the importance of “informed consent by the user,” noting that data collection and usage transparency are crucial for building trust. Product managers must grapple with questions like How much data is necessary to collect? How can we ensure users truly understand what they’re consenting to? How do we balance personalization with privacy?

The challenge of data ethics and responsible collection practices is closely related to privacy concerns. Kasia Chmielinski points out that data is the foundation of all AI solutions, no matter what you’re building. This means that ethical considerations must begin at the data collection stage. Product managers need to consider the legality of their data practices and their ethical implications. This includes ensuring diverse and representative data sets, avoiding biases in data collection, and considering the potential for data misuse or unintended consequences.

The rise of AI and machine learning has introduced a new layer of complexity to product ethics. Algorithmic bias is a significant concern, as AI systems can perpetuate or amplify existing societal biases. For instance, AI-driven hiring tools have been found to discriminate against certain demographic groups, while facial recognition systems have shown lower accuracy rates for women and people of color. Product managers must be vigilant in identifying and mitigating these biases, which often require looking beyond the code to the underlying data and assumptions that inform AI models.

Transparency in AI-driven products presents another challenge. As AI systems become more complex, their decision-making processes can become opaque, leading to what’s often referred to as the “black box” problem. John Haggerty stresses the importance of “being able to explain” AI systems to users, even in simplified terms. Product managers must find ways to make AI-driven features and decisions more understandable and accountable to users.

The addictive nature of many digital products has also come under scrutiny. Features designed to maximize engagement can sometimes cross the line into exploitative territory, negatively impacting users’ mental health and well-being. As Roman Pichler notes, “Engagement then becomes a euphemism for addiction.” Product managers must wrestle with the ethical implications of design choices that may boost key metrics but at the cost of user well-being. This challenge requires a careful balancing act between business goals and ethical considerations.

Accessibility and inclusive design represent another crucial ethical consideration. Products that aren’t accessible to users with disabilities not only exclude a significant portion of the population but also often fall short of legal requirements. Beyond legal compliance, there’s an ethical imperative to ensure that products are usable by as wide a range of people as possible. This challenge extends to considerations of cultural inclusivity and avoiding designs that may alienate or marginalize certain groups.

Environmental sustainability is an emerging ethical concern in product management. The environmental impact of digital products, from the energy consumption of data centers to the e-waste generated by hardware, is becoming increasingly apparent. Product managers need to consider the ecological footprint of their products throughout their lifecycle, from development to disposal.

One of the most complex challenges is keeping humans in the loop throughout the process, especially in AI-driven systems. Kasia Chmielinski argues that it’s crucial to ensure that “humans are doing the things that humans are good at and machines are doing the things that machines are good at.” This means designing systems that leverage AI capabilities while still maintaining human oversight and intervention where necessary. It’s a delicate balance that requires careful consideration of where and how to integrate human judgment into automated processes.

Product managers must grapple with the broader societal implications of their products, too. Technologies like social media platforms have demonstrated the power to influence public opinion, shape social norms, and even impact democratic processes. This level of influence comes with significant ethical responsibilities. Product managers must consider how their product affects individual users and how it might shape society at large.

Navigating these ethical challenges requires awareness, foresight, and principled decision-making. It demands that product managers look beyond immediate metrics and short-term gains to consider the long-term and often unforeseen impacts of their products. As the ethical landscape continues to evolve, staying informed and adaptable will be key to creating products that are not only successful but also ethically sound and socially responsible.

Approaches for Ethical Decision-Making in Product Development

Having robust approaches to decision-making is crucial. These approaches serve as guiding principles, helping product managers navigate the often murky waters of ethical dilemmas and make decisions that align with business objectives and ethical standards.

Josh Hart emphasizes the importance of team engagement in developing these principles. By involving the entire product team in the process, organizations can ensure that ethical considerations are not just top-down mandates but are woven into the fabric of the product development culture. This collaborative approach helps create principles that resonate with the team and are more likely to be applied in day-to-day decision-making.

Hart’s approach involves starting discussions within the team about products that have negatively impacted their lives. This exercise helps team members connect personally with the ethical implications of product decisions. From there, the team can identify key ethical concerns relevant to their product and user base. The resulting principles might cover areas such as inclusivity, understanding users’ hardships, or ensuring accessibility for all users.

Kasia Chmielinski offers another perspective on ethical product development, emphasizing the importance of considering the “could” versus “should” question. This thought encourages product managers to look beyond what is technically feasible to consider whether a particular feature or product should be developed. It’s crucial in an age where technological capabilities often outpace ethical considerations.

Implementing ethical practices throughout the product lifecycle is also an important component. This involves incorporating ethical considerations at every stage, from initial ideation to post-launch monitoring. During the design phase, for instance, product managers might employ techniques like ethical impact assessments, similar to privacy impact assessments but broader in scope. These assessments can help identify potential ethical issues early in development when changes are easier and less costly to implement.

Ethical considerations in the development and testing phases might involve ensuring diverse representation in user testing groups, conducting thorough bias audits of AI systems, or implementing robust data protection measures. Post-launch, it’s important to have mechanisms in place for ongoing ethical monitoring and iteration. This might include regular ethical audits, user feedback channels specifically focused on ethical concerns, or cross-functional ethics committees to address emerging issues.

Balancing business objectives with user well-being is one of the most challenging aspects of ethical product management. John Haggerty talks about the importance of this balance, noting that while meeting business goals is essential, it shouldn’t come at the cost of compromising ethical principles. One approach for addressing this balance is to consider the concept of “ethical debt,” analogous to technical debt in software development. This idea encourages product managers to consider the long-term ethical implications of short-term decisions and proactively allocate resources to address potential ethical issues.

Another useful approach is stakeholder mapping with an ethical lens. This involves identifying all stakeholders affected by a product decision—not just users and the business but also potentially impacted communities, the environment, and future generations. By considering this broader range of stakeholders, product managers can make more holistic and ethically sound decisions.

Building an Ethical Product Culture

While approaches and guidelines are essential, truly ethical product management requires fostering a culture where ethical considerations are woven into everyday decision-making. Building such a culture is a multifaceted endeavor that requires commitment at all levels of an organization, from leadership to individual contributors.

John Haggerty believes that product managers are critical in championing ethical values and promoting a culture of ethical decision-making within the organization. This championing starts at the top, with leaders who articulate ethical values and embody them in their actions and decisions. Leaders consistently prioritizing ethical considerations alongside business objectives sends a powerful message throughout the organization.

Creating and implementing ethical guidelines and policies is crucial in building an ethical product culture. However, as Josh Hart’s experience at The Lego Group illustrates, these guidelines are most effective when developed collaboratively rather than imposed from above. By involving team members in creating ethical principles, organizations can ensure that these principles resonate with the team and reflect its diverse perspectives. This collaborative approach also helps create a sense of ownership and commitment to ethical practices among team members.

Training and empowering teams to make ethical decisions is another key aspect of building an ethical product culture. This goes beyond simply communicating guidelines; it involves equipping team members with the skills and knowledge needed to navigate complex ethical dilemmas. This might include workshops on ethical reasoning, case studies of ethical challenges in product development, or simulations that allow team members to practice applying ethical principles in realistic scenarios.

Encouraging ethical discussions and debates within the team is crucial for maintaining a vibrant ethical culture. As Kasia Chmielinski suggests, product teams should regularly engage in conversations about the ethical implications of their work. This could involve dedicated time in team meetings for ethical reflections or even establishing an “ethics champion” role that rotates among team members. By normalizing these discussions, teams can create an environment where ethical concerns are openly voiced and thoughtfully addressed.

Integrating ethics into product development is another effective way to build an ethical culture. This might involve adding ethical considerations to product requirement documents, including ethical impact assessments in the design phase, or incorporating ethical metrics into product success criteria. By making ethics a formal part of the development process, organizations can ensure that it’s not treated as an afterthought but an integral part of product creation.

Creating a culture of accountability is also crucial. This involves celebrating ethical successes and addressing ethical missteps openly and constructively. Ethical lapses should be viewed as opportunities for learning and improvement rather than occasions for blame. This approach encourages transparency and helps build a culture where team members feel safe raising ethical concerns.

A culture that fosters ethical product management can’t be done without being open to learning and iterating accordingly. The ethical landscape in technology is constantly evolving, with new challenges emerging as technologies advance. Organizations need to stay informed about these developments and be willing to evolve their ethical practices accordingly. This might involve regular ethics training updates, subscribing to ethics in technology publications, or participating in industry forums on ethical product development.

Lastly, it’s important to recognize that building an ethical product culture is an ongoing process, not a one-time initiative. It requires consistent effort, regular reinforcement, and a willingness to grapple with difficult questions. By committing to this process, organizations can create an environment where ethical considerations are not considered constraints but integral components of building successful, sustainable, and socially responsible products.

Measuring Ethical Impact and Future Trends

Emerging technologies and shifting societal expectations are shaping the future landscape of ethical considerations in product development. This dual focus on measurement and future trends is essential for product managers looking to create lasting, positive impact through their work.

Developing ethical KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and metrics presents a unique challenge. Unlike traditional business metrics, ethical impacts are often qualitative and long-term, making them harder to quantify. However, as Kasia Chmielinski pointedly notes, “You make what you measure.” This insight underscores the importance of finding ways to quantify the ethical impact, as these measurements will inevitably shape product decisions.

One approach to developing ethical metrics is to focus on proxies that indicate ethical behavior or outcomes. For instance, a product team might track the number of user privacy complaints, the frequency of algorithmic bias incidents, or the diversity of user testing groups. While these metrics don’t capture the full scope of ethical impact, they provide tangible data points that can guide decision-making and highlight areas for improvement.

Another method involves creating composite scores that combine various ethical considerations. For example, an “ethical impact score” could incorporate data privacy practices, accessibility features, environmental sustainability, and user well-being metrics. While such scores inevitably involve subjectivity in their weighting, they can provide a holistic view of a product’s ethical standing and facilitate comparisons over time or across different products.

Building and maintaining user trust is another critical aspect of ethical product management that requires careful measurement. Trust is foundational to long-term product success, yet it’s notoriously difficult to quantify. Some companies have begun experimenting with “trust indexes” that combine user surveys, behavioral data, and external reputation metrics to gauge overall trust levels. Regular monitoring of these trust metrics can help product teams identify potential ethical issues early and take corrective action.

While sometimes challenging to measure in the short term, the long-term benefits of ethical practices can significantly impact a company’s success. These benefits include enhanced brand reputation, increased user loyalty, better talent attraction and retention, and reduced regulatory risks. While these outcomes may not be immediately apparent in quarterly reports, they contribute substantially to a company’s long-term sustainability and success.

Looking toward the future, several emerging technologies are poised to introduce new ethical considerations for product managers. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), for instance, raises profound questions about decision-making autonomy and the role of human oversight (back to the “could vs. should” question that was raised earlier in this essay). Product managers must grapple with the ethical implications of creating products that may have unprecedented levels of autonomy and impact.

The rise of immersive technologies like virtual and augmented reality presents another frontier of ethical challenges. These technologies have the potential to blur the lines between digital and physical experiences, raising new questions about privacy, psychological impact, and the nature of reality itself. Product managers working in these fields must consider creating safe, ethical spaces in virtual environments and managing the potential for addiction or detachment from the physical world.

The evolving regulatory landscape is another crucial factor shaping the future of ethical product management. As governments and international bodies grapple with the rapid pace of technological change, new regulations around data privacy, AI ethics, and digital rights will likely emerge. Product managers must stay ahead of these regulatory trends, not just for compliance reasons, but to ensure their products align with emerging societal expectations of ethical technology.

Lastly, the role of product managers in shaping ethical tech policies is likely to grow. Product managers are uniquely positioned to contribute to policy discussions as the individuals closest to both the technological capabilities and user needs. This might involve participating in industry standards committees, engaging with regulatory bodies, or contributing to public discourse on tech ethics. Product managers can help ensure that future policies are ethically sound and practically implementable by taking an active role in these conversations.

As we look to the future, it’s clear that ethical considerations will only become more central to product management. The products we create today will shape the world of tomorrow, and with that power comes the responsibility to consider their full ethical implications. By developing robust measurement frameworks and staying attuned to emerging trends, product managers can create a more ethical, sustainable, and human-centered technological future.

Summing it all up – A Call for Ethical Leadership in Product Management

Throughout this exploration, we’ve seen how ethical considerations touch every aspect of product development, from understanding user needs to implementing AI technologies.

The challenges are significant: protecting user privacy, mitigating algorithmic bias, ensuring inclusivity, and considering the broader societal impacts of our products. Yet, as we’ve discovered, powerful frameworks and strategies are available to help us meet these challenges head-on. By implementing ethical decision-making processes, fostering a culture of ethical awareness, and developing metrics to measure our impact, we can create products that succeed in the market and contribute positively to society.

The future of product management is inextricably linked with ethical considerations. As technologies continue to advance and our products become increasingly integrated into people’s lives, the responsibility of product managers will only grow. We must stay vigilant, continuously educating ourselves about emerging ethical issues and adapting our practices accordingly.

But knowledge alone is not enough. The time for action is now. As product managers and leaders, we have the power to shape not just our products but the future of technology and its impact on humanity. This is our call to action:

1. Commit to embedding ethical considerations into every stage of your product development process.
2. Foster a culture of ethical awareness within your teams and organizations.
3. Develop and implement ethical metrics to measure the true impact of your products.
4. Stay informed about emerging technologies and their ethical implications.
5. Engage in broader discussions about tech ethics and contribute to shaping ethical standards in our industry.

Remember, as John Haggerty emphasized, we must stay “in love with the problem, not the solution.” By focusing on our users’ genuine needs and the ethical implications of our work, we can create products that truly make a positive difference.

The future of ethical product management is in our hands. Let’s build it together.

The post Deep-Dive: Ethical Product Management appeared first on Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference.

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Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, co-founders of 37signals found themselves at a crossroads. They had long been champions of simplicity and user empowerment, having created popular products like Basecamp and HEY. Yet, as the software industry increasingly embraced the subscription-based SaaS model, they felt a growing discontent with the status quo.

The duo reminisced about the early days of software, when users would pay once, install a program, and truly own it. This nostalgia sparked an idea: what if they could bring back the simplicity and ownership of those early days? What if they could create a new model where software wasn’t rented but owned outright by those who purchased it?

As they discussed this vision, they realized the potential impact it could have. The SaaS model, while beneficial for some, had become a burden for many businesses, locking them into endless cycles of payments for software they never truly owned. Jason and David saw an opportunity to lead the industry into a new era, one where customers had more control and autonomy.

Thus, the concept of ONCE was born. This new initiative would offer software products that users could buy once and own forever. They envisioned a model where the code was transparent, allowing users to host it themselves, free from the constraints of recurring fees and external control.

Excited by the possibilities, Jason and David began to lay the groundwork for ONCE. They knew it wouldn’t be easy, as it challenged the prevailing norms of the tech industry. However, they were driven by a desire to empower users and simplify the software experience.

As they prepared to launch their first product under the ONCE umbrella, they felt a renewed sense of purpose. They were not just creating software; they were crafting a new narrative for the industry, one that prioritized user ownership and simplicity. With ONCE, Jason and David were ready to lead the charge into a post-SaaS era, confident that their vision would resonate with those seeking a more straightforward and empowering software experience

I was so excited to learn that Mike Belsito, cofounder at Product Collective and our collaborators here at Behind the Product, sat down with Jason Fried to learn more about launching ONCE and its family of products.

Here’s what we learned:

• The founding story of the ONCE brand
• How they made the decision to start with Campfire as the first ONCE product
• The future of ONCE-style software purchasing
• Key learnings in pricing
• Hard-won lessons for product builders today

Please enjoy Mike’s conversation with Jason Fried, CEO at 37signals.

Tell us the “why” behind Once

One of the pivotal moments was when BMW announced they were switching heated seats to a subscription model. I remember talking with David about it, like, “What? Hold on a second. You spend around 60 grand on a car, and now you need to pay 15 bucks a month just to heat your seat? This is insane.” That moment made it clear that something was fundamentally broken in the way products were being offered.

Subscription as a business model is perfectly fine—we still have subscription products and believe in the idea—but when everything starts moving towards subscriptions, something’s off. It’s like when everyone’s buying the same stock, you know something’s up.

David and I had several conversations about this general shift. We were moving away from the cloud services we were previously paying for and began running our own solutions. Around this time, we achieved some technological breakthroughs that made it significantly easier to host software yourself. Before, it was a hassle requiring an IT person and a lot of configurations. But we figured out a way to streamline it—essentially, you’d just paste one command emailed to you into a terminal, and you’d be all set.

So, these observations about the world, technological frustrations, and a few internal breakthroughs led us to the idea of building something self-hosted. While we didn’t know at the time it would turn into what it is today, we knew we wanted to create something in this direction. That’s kind of the origin story of Once.

Why did you decide to bring Campfire back as a standalone product?

We had some friends who use Slack, and we were just curious about how much they were paying for it. When we heard it was something like six grand a month, we were shocked. They have a lot of employees, but still, we were taken aback by the amount. I started asking this on Twitter, “How much did you pay for it?” and I was just shocked to see how much money people are spending on something that is free otherwise.

The thing is, I know Slack does more than just chat, but fundamentally, chatting isn’t a high-technology product. WhatsApp is free, Signal is free, iMessage is free, Android Messenger is free. Facebook, these things are free. So we recognized a problem: why are people paying ridiculous amounts of money for what is fundamentally free elsewhere?

We started looking at chat as a commodity in businesses today. Typically, when there’s a commodity in an industry, prices come way down. Commodities are essentially identical products that are generic enough. We realized chat could be a wonderful place to start because it’s still too expensive despite being around for a long time. There are only a few chat products, and they’re all high-priced. We knew how to make something like this, and it was a concept tight enough to be a standalone product.

So, it was a confluence of various factors, but the main catalyst was realizing how much people were paying for business chat software, which made no sense to me at all. It was and still is outrageous.

Tell us more about your philosophy around software buying

The nice thing about owning software this way is you get to decide if you want it or not. There are no dependencies or contingencies on us. You can modify it to your own use—whatever you want to do, it’s yours after you buy it. Of course, there are some license restrictions, like you can’t resell it or base other products on it, but you can use it for your personal or commercial needs however you see fit.

A lot of people in the industry now grew up with software as a service (SaaS) and can’t imagine any other way to buy software. They’re used to paying a subscription fee forever, with all their data tied up in a company that could cut them off if they don’t pay their bill or goes out of business. I believe there should be an alternative to that model. We haven’t seen a different approach for over a decade, maybe even longer, so we thought it was a good idea to bring this concept back. While software you buy, install, and run yourself still exists for desktop computers, it’s less common at the business level, where everything has shifted towards services. We’re not inventing anything new; we’re just reintroducing this ownership model into the current market.

How do you see this playing out?

It’s definitely a barrier for some, I mean we’re early. We’re very early on this. This is sort of our general pattern. We’re typically very early to things and sometimes that works out well and sometimes it doesn’t. It worked out well for SaaS because we got a really early head start on Basecamp. We were early on remote work, and we were early on some other stuff, but we were also probably too early on the original version of Campfire way back in 2006. At that time, group chat just wasn’t a thing. I remember having to shove it down people’s throats. They didn’t understand why you would ever want to chat with your company. And, of course, Slack came around seven or eight years later, and then everyone wanted to do it. So we were way early on that, even though they had a great product too.

I feel like if Slack had launched when we launched Campfire, it wouldn’t have taken off either. The timing just wasn’t right. So we’re early here as well on installable software, and time will tell how it all plays out. We’ve sold thousands of copies so far of Campfire, and we’re very happy with that as an initial start. It has been a really wonderful testing ground for us to try some new ideas and build some new technology. It’s also a foundation for future products that we’re going to be building.

Right now, it wouldn’t pay the bills, it wouldn’t keep the lights on, and it wouldn’t pay 70 people’s salaries or anything like that yet. But it wasn’t intended to do that just a few months in. It was more about seeing if there was any interest in this whatsoever, and clearly, there is. So we know there’s something there. Whether or not it’s viable to run the whole company on a model like that is yet to be seen. As of now, it’s not. But again, it wasn’t meant to be. It’s funny—this is the way it used to be, and it’s funny how you could be early again to the way it used to be. I think we’ll see how that plays out.

What were some of the learnings along the way to launching this first ONCE product?

We didn’t know that we could ultimately make it as easy as we made it to install the products. It’s incredibly easy and almost ridiculously easy, but we didn’t know we could get there. We were hoping we could and it turned out we eventually could, but we had to work through some ideas to make that work. We are using a different database system than we’re used to historically, and there were a lot of things we hadn’t worked with before. We didn’t know if we could support installation on all sorts of different environments or if it was just going to require a very specific specification. Turns out you can install it on a whole bunch of things including a Raspberry Pi. You can go buy a Raspberry Pi and put Campfire on there and support something like 250 concurrent chatters, which is pretty wild.

We also had some early discussions about what we wanted to make. Do we want to break new ground in this chat product style or do we just want to nail the basics? We decided to start with the basics initially. There were other ideas about dealing with communication software that we didn’t incorporate into this product, and we weren’t sure how far we wanted to go.

One thing we were sure about initially, but didn’t know how to achieve, was the goal to make universal software. We wanted to create software with no words in it whatsoever, so it would be immediately usable in every market around the world without needing translation. The icons and UI had to be so intuitive that anyone would understand it, much like chat interfaces which are universally recognizable. In the end, we had to include a handful of words, which was frustrating, but we came up with a novel way to do on-demand translations for those who needed it.

Another big unknown was the updates. How were we going to update the software? We eventually came up with a solution to auto-update every night at 2:00 AM unless turned off by the user, ensuring the software was always up-to-date without manual downloads. This turned out to be a significant part of the product’s appeal.

We were also uncertain about the price, whether people would buy it, or if they would pirate it. The code included is open, so while you pay for the product, the code is freely accessible. We didn’t know how people would react to that. But in the end, most of the things you worry about never happen anyway. It’s a good reminder that you have to find a comfort level with the unknowns, launch, and see what happens.

What surprised you about the launch of Campfire under the Once family?

How innovative and resourceful the Small Bets community turned out to be. They switched from Discord to Campfire and essentially forked it completely, building on top of it in a very significant way. They’ve added numerous features that we don’t have and done a bunch of things with it that we hadn’t even thought of. Some of their additions are really great ideas, so good that we might want to incorporate them back into our product. Others are very specific to their needs.

What truly caught me off guard was not just the ingenuity but the efficiency of their approach. For just $300, they managed to save themselves six months of development time. So, in essence, we sold them six months of development for $300. They began with a foundational chat product and built upon it, which was just wonderful to see.

It’s incredibly smart and clever. I wasn’t expecting anyone to take this route. There have been some other inquiries too, from people wanting to replicate what Small Bets did. My response has been encouraging but clear: they have to be willing to put in the work, just like Small Bets did. Their approach was a really smart move and quite a surprise to me. I’d love to see more people do that because it also gave me ideas about the potential for building commercial products that are fully functional yet designed to be modified.

It was like selling a kit car or a prefab shed, where you get a solid base and then you can modify it as you wish. This concept of selling a headstart is intriguing. We’re offering something robust, fully functional, but also modifiable, essentially giving people a bundle of constructed raw materials. You get a great product out of the box, but if you want to add windows or a ceiling fan to your ‘shed,’ you can. You didn’t have to build the shed; it came ready, and now you can personalize it. Seeing what Daniel and his team did at Small Bets made me ponder if there’s a viable business model here. It might just be, at the very least, it’s a very interesting idea.

Will this be the de facto model for 37signals as you continue to launch products?

We’re working on two more products right now and we’re thinking about what models make sense. It could be one, the other, or both. It’s possible that maybe we can make something that would work both ways. I don’t really know. There’s a lot of complexity involved with that because there are many things you take for granted with a service, like even simple things such as notification systems and email. If you want to blast an email notification to somebody, the service model is simple, but in the ONCE model, you also have to install a mail server, and that’s a more complicated level of installation. So you’ve got to configure that. There are some complications there, but we’re going into these products with open eyes. We’re just going to build the best things we can and as we get deeper into them, we’ll start to decide which way we’re going to go or if we’ll go both ways and we’ll see what happens. Maybe there’s a third model. I don’t know.

I mean, there just might be other things that come about. I’ve always been curious about a once model service where you pay once for a service and then it’s yours. Or once you’ve paid us enough, like let’s say you paid us $5,000 over the course of using Basecamp or whatever, if you hit the $5,000 mark, it’s yours. We’ll never charge you again. Now, we don’t do this currently, but it’s something I’ve thought about. Maybe we could do something like that where once you’ve paid enough, we’re just happy to have you forever at that point. Again, we don’t do this, but there are other possibilities here that we could explore over time.

I’ve always been interested in business models. Back when we were a design firm, we did this thing called 37 Express, which was a one-page redesign. Instead of redesigning someone’s entire site, it was just one page in one week for $3,500. Fixed price, fixed scope, fixed timeframe, very short. You want another page? Cool. You want us to just look at your search results page? Cool, we’ll do that. I want to stay curious and continue exploring these kinds of ideas.

Are you getting any blowback from other founders who are selling the traditional SaaS model?

Well, I mean, there are different business models. We sell Basecamp with a limiter on the price. You can’t pay us more than $299 a month, period. You could have 9,000 employees using Basecamp, and we’re only going to charge you $299 a month max. So, you can still have a wonderful business and still cap your prices at some point. We used to be $99 a month for unlimited users. Now, we have a per-user plan and a max plan. So, there are other ways to do this.

But, I mean, charging thousands of dollars a month, or even high hundreds, or low thousands—my point of view is that software should be affordable. Out of all things, software should be among the most affordable goods in the world, like it’s software. There’s no raw material costs. I mean, there’s time to build the thing, right? But there’s almost no marginal cost after you’ve built it.

Of course, you have to support it, which is where services become expensive, but I just find it to be outrageous. I don’t think software should be expensive. I have heard from some founders, but I said, “Don’t worry, you don’t have anything to worry about right now. It’s early days, and we’ll see what happens.” And hey, if it turns out to be a viable business model, like a really viable business model, you have to sell at this price point—a $299 price point, which is what Campfire’s price is—you have to sell a lot of them to make it viable to really run a business. But if it does, if it is, you can convert your product to that or offer a flavor of an installable version.

This is hopefully shining a light on what’s possible. It’s not just for us. Maybe this is a viable model for others too. We’ll be the guinea pigs. We’ll try it out and we’ll see what happens.

What advice do you have for folks working on pricing?

Well, first and foremost, the pricing has got to be viable. This is the thing I think not enough people consider. They just pick a number and think they’re good to go. For example, a price of six bucks a month isn’t going to work if you have 35 employees and only sell 1200 seats. You’ve got to find something that accommodates your cost structure because the primary goal is to stay in business. I don’t care how good your product is—if you’re out of business, you’re gone.

I actually tweeted something about this morning. People always talk about product reliability, but your product is only as reliable as your company. If your company isn’t there, the product is gone, especially if it’s a service. So, you really need to focus on making a reliable company first, before worrying about product reliability. That means finding a viable pricing strategy, baking in some profit, and considering your costs, your growth aspirations, and other related factors.

There are also some psychological price points to consider, but they still need to make sense for your business. Again, there’s often too much focus on the customer. You’ve got to think about your own company first. Can we make this pricing work for us? If we’re not here, then the product isn’t here either. This is something not discussed enough, especially for venture-funded companies that just get a bunch of money in the bank, pick numbers, and focus on generating revenue. But you can go broke generating revenue if you don’t make it financially sustainable.

So, I’d start with an economic mindset: What are our costs? How do we keep them as low as possible? This gives us the most flexibility and options for pricing.

Tell us about Writebook. Why is it free?

We initially didn’t set out to give Writebook away for free. Actually, initially, we didn’t even have a price, but we thought it might be quite a bit higher—maybe something like $799—for companies to run internal books, handbooks, run books, and internal resources. As we got deeper into it, we realized we loved this for our own personal books. We even had an employee whose father had always wanted to write a book but found it too intimidating to get online. This small book wouldn’t be picked up by a publisher, and there really wasn’t a good option for him.

This made me think that we should create something for everybody to be able to publish a book online. It should be dead simple, really clear, and really easy to use. Something you might love to use. So we thought, why not just give this away? We didn’t think individuals would pay much for this sort of thing, though businesses might pay a little here and there. Initially, we had a commercial version with a price and a personal version for personal use. We ultimately decided to give the whole thing away as a love letter back to the independent web.

In our opinion, the web is the greatest computing platform ever made. It’s free and open, and nobody owns it. We’d love to see more and more people publish things. Many people publish lots of things—blog posts, social posts, whatever—but publishing a book is hard because there’s no real native format for a book online. Sure, you can massage a CMS to make it work, but we felt we had something to offer here. Let’s just give it away; we don’t need the revenue from this. Plus, let’s expose people to the process of downloading and installing software, showing them that they can do it.

A lot of people wouldn’t try something if it cost $300 because they would doubt their ability to do it. But if it’s free, they just need to follow the directions. It takes less than 10 minutes and there are like eight steps. It will give people confidence that they can do this sort of thing, which is generally a good thing for people to have.

Any final thoughts for the product builders out there?

I hope there’s a spirit that I’m trying to share, which is there are other ways in all the things that you do. It’s very easy to fall in line and be like, well, we have to make a SaaS thing. We got to do it this way. They do it that way and we got to make our interface really dark. What’s cool right now and all the things, yeah, you can do that, but there are other ways to do things, and there’s something to me very exciting about trying to blaze a new path or an old path.

It’s kind of like when I went hiking recently. We were going down a well-maintained path and then there was clearly a path that shot off from that maintained path that wasn’t as maintained but used to be. You could see that there used to be a path there and it’s kind of cool to go back down that old path and see what was there.

That’s kind of what we’re doing here and I think that there’s a lot you can hopefully take away from that spirit. Be curious. Explore. Of course, you got to make it work, but also, I think there’s something to this idea of what are your luxuries and with those, can you share the largesse?

Basically, can you share from your luxury position? It is a real joy to do that and to see people light up and be so excited to get something that’s good for free. Most things that are free are kind of cheap and bad—not all things, but most things tend to be. We really didn’t cut any corners. We tried to make something great and give it away for free with no strings attached. It’s a rare experience to have something like that, and to be able to give something like that is also rare and it feels really good. So I think there’s something to that too.

A huge thank you to Jason Fried for sitting down with us and sharing his time and expertise. You can follow along with Jason on Linkedin here.

The post Deep-Dive: Behind the Product: Once appeared first on Product Collective | Organizers of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference.

This shift hasn’t just changed where we work; it’s revolutionized how we work. For some, gone are the impromptu hallway conversations and whiteboard sessions. In their place, we’ve got Zoom calls, Slack channels, and virtual collaboration tools. It’s a completely different way of working—and for product managers, it’s both exciting and challenging.

Remote product management isn’t just about replicating office work from home. It’s about reimagining how we build products, lead teams, and drive innovation when we’re not all in the same room. It requires new skills, new tools, and, often, a new mindset.

In this essay, we’ll dive deep into what remote product management actually looks like. We’ll explore strategies for building and managing distributed teams, effective communication techniques, and ways to foster collaboration and innovation from afar. We’ll also tackle the unique challenges of remote work and look at how successful companies are navigating this new landscape.

Whether you’re a seasoned remote PM or still figuring out how to navigate the remote work life, this essay is meant to help you explore how not just to survive but thrive in the world of remote product management.

Building and Managing a Remote Product Team

When it comes to remote product management, your team is your lifeline. Building and managing that team effectively can make or break your product’s success. Having that right “dream team” that can thrive in a distributed environment is important. But the first step in managing that dream team is building it – and, more specifically, hiring those team members. 

Hiring for remote product roles is a whole different ball game. Sure, you’re still looking for those product management superpowers—strategic thinking, user empathy, and the ability to juggle multiple priorities—but now, you’ve got to add a few more items to your checklist.

In a fireside chat with Product Collective’s Paul McAvinchey, Michael Sacca, now CEO at Leadpages, emphasized the importance of trust in remote hiring – specifically looking for candidates who demonstrate excellent communication skills, self-motivation, and the ability to work independently.

But how do you gauge these qualities in a remote interview process? Sacca’s team at Dribbble took an interesting approach. They use longer video calls that mimic collaborative work sessions, allowing them to see how candidates think and communicate in real time. It’s not just about what they say but how they engage with the team.

Once you’ve found your remote product superstar, onboarding becomes crucial. Megan Cook, Head of Product for Jira at Atlassian, suggests creating a “product field manual” for new hires. This manual isn’t just about how to use the coffee machine (although, if you’ve found a way to share coffee remotely, please let me know). Instead, it includes an overview of the product strategy, recent launches, key metrics, and essential tools. It’s like giving your new hire a map of your product world.

Onboarding isn’t just about information dumps. It’s about making your new team member feel connected to the team and the broader product vision. Consider assigning a “remote buddy”—an experienced team member who can be their go-to person for questions and informal chats. Virtual coffee chats with different team members can also help recreate those casual office interactions that build relationships.

Of course, once they’re onboarded, accountability and trust, which were discussed earlier as crucial in the interview process, become especially important. In an office, you might gauge productivity by seeing people at their desks (not that this was ever a great metric, but let’s be honest, we’ve all done it). In a remote environment, you need to shift your focus entirely to outcomes (which may be where the focus should have been the entire time). 

Sacca notes that it’s important to set our expectations based not on daily performance but on what a team member has achieved and accomplished. This means clearly defining what success looks like for each role and each project. OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) can be a great framework, providing clear, measurable goals that align individual work with broader company objectives.

But trust is a two-way street. As a leader, you must trust your team to manage their time and workload. This might mean letting go of the 9-to-5 mindset and embracing asynchronous work. If someone does their best work at midnight, then so be it. Flexibility can be a powerful motivator as long as they’re meeting their goals and are available for key meetings.

When it comes to managing performance in a distributed environment, regular check-ins become crucial. These aren’t about micromanaging but about providing support and removing roadblocks. Many remote product leaders swear by weekly one-on-ones with each team member, using this time to discuss progress, challenges, and professional development. This can be time-consuming, so you’ll have to determine whether this may be a strategy that fits within the structure of your organization. 

Don’t forget to celebrate wins, too. In an office, you might pop some champagne or ring a gong for a successful launch (it sounds cheesy, but these rituals sometimes matter). In a remote setting, you need to be more intentional about recognition. Some teams use dedicated Slack channels for shout-outs, while others include a “wins” section in their team meetings.

Building and managing a remote product team isn’t just about replicating office processes online. It’s about rethinking how we work together, communicate, and drive results.

Effective Communication Strategies in Remote Product Management

For remote product teams, communication isn’t just a part of the job—it’s the lifeblood that keeps your team and product thriving. But when you can’t rely on those impromptu hallway chats or quick desk drive-bys, how do you keep the lines of communication humming – especially when your team is spread across different time zones, perhaps even continents?

Let’s start with the golden rule of remote communication: overcommunication is your friend. But before you start flooding your team’s inboxes, remember that it’s about quality, not just quantity. As Phil Hornsby points out in his writings on remote work, it’s crucial to repeat key messages in different formats to ensure they’re fully understood. This might mean following up a team meeting with a written summary or creating visual aids to complement your product roadmap discussions.

These days, asynchronous communications through tools like Slack have become especially popular. Yet many people still find value in knowing they can communicate with their team in real-time. To this end, Michael Sacca shared an interesting approach that his teams have used in the past. During his time at Dribble, Sacca’s team prioritizes a five-hour overlap in working hours across time zones. This creates a sweet spot for real-time collaboration while still allowing for flexible schedules.

But don’t fall into the trap of thinking all work needs to happen in real time. Asynchronous communication can be a powerful tool in your remote product management arsenal. It allows team members to digest information and respond thoughtfully rather than feeling pressured to have immediate answers.

Aside from tools like Slack, consider using Loom for short video updates or Notion for collaborative documentation. These allow team members to consume information at their own pace while still feeling connected to the team’s work. Plus, they create a searchable repository of knowledge—no more digging through endless Slack threads to find that one crucial decision!

Speaking of tools, the remote product manager’s toolkit is vast and ever-growing. But remember, tools are meant to solve problems, not create them. Before introducing a new app or platform, ask yourself: What problem is this solving? How will it integrate with our existing workflows?

Megan Cook from Atlassian suggests using a mix of synchronous and asynchronous tools. For instance, use Slack for quick questions and updates, Confluence for documentation and longer-form communication, and Zoom for more complex discussions or decision-making processes.

Establish clear guidelines for how and when to use each tool. You don’t want important product decisions lost in a sea of cat GIFs on Slack. (Let’s be honest: Sometimes, a well-timed cat GIF can brighten up even the most stressful product launch.)

The loss of non-verbal cues in remote communication can indeed present some challenges. Messages can easily be misinterpreted without the benefit of body language and facial expressions. This is where video calls become crucial.

But not all video calls are created equal. We’ve all suffered through those awkward silences on Zoom where everyone’s waiting for someone else to speak. Sacca’s team at Dribbble had an interesting solution: they sometimes keep video calls open for hours, with team members popping in and out as needed. This recreates the organic flow of office interactions and can lead to those serendipitous moments of collaboration that often spark innovation.

Remember, effective communication in a remote setting is a skill that needs to be consciously developed and continually refined. Encourage your team to be proactive in their communication, ask questions when things aren’t clear, and be patient with each other as you navigate this new way of working.

Lastly, don’t forget the power of informal communication. Those water cooler chats and coffee break conversations are crucial in team bonding and often lead to creative problem-solving. In a remote setting, you must intentionally create spaces for these interactions. Virtual coffee chats, online game sessions, or even remote team-building activities can foster the personal connections that fuel great teamwork.

In the end, mastering communication in remote product management is about finding the right balance. It’s about knowing when to jump on a quick video call and when to craft a thoughtful written message. It’s about creating spaces for both focused work and spontaneous collaboration. And most importantly, it’s about fostering a culture where everyone feels heard, valued, and connected—no matter where they’re logging in from.

Remote Product Development Processes: Adapting and Thriving

Traditional product development processes might feel held together with virtual duct tape and hope when your product team is distributed across different time zones and locations. With some creative thinking and the right tools, you can adapt your remote work processes and potentially supercharge your product development efforts.

Let’s start with the cornerstone of many product development methodologies: the sprint. In a remote setting, the concept of a sprint doesn’t change, but how you execute it certainly does. Megan Cook from Atlassian shares an interesting approach: her team has shifted to more structured planning sessions for 4-6 weeks. This upfront investment in planning helps ensure everyone is aligned and reduces the need for constant real-time communication.

Michael Sacca’s team at Dribbble took a page from 37 Signals’s playbook by incorporating “breather” periods between sprints. These periods allow for code cleanup, addressing technical debt, and tackling those “nice-to-have” items that often get pushed to the bottom of the backlog. It’s like allowing your team to clean the garage before starting the next big home improvement project.

But how do you foster those “aha!” moments when your team isn’t huddled around a whiteboard, fueled by coffee and creative energy? One approach is to create virtual innovation hubs. These can be dedicated Slack channels, Miro boards, or even scheduled “innovation hours” where team members can brainstorm and explore new ideas.

Of course, innovation isn’t just about coming up with new ideas—it’s about executing them. This requires a new level of documentation and transparency in a remote setting. Consider creating a “product lab” where team members can propose and prototype new features. This could be a dedicated space in your project management tool where anyone can submit ideas, attach prototypes, and gather feedback from the team.

User testing and research also take on new dimensions in a remote world. While you might miss out on in-person observations, remote research opens up new possibilities. You can conduct user interviews with people from different geographic areas, potentially uncovering insights you might have missed in a traditional setting.

Phil Hornsby suggests leveraging the increased availability of customers for quick video chats or surveys. This increased accessibility can lead to more frequent and diverse customer touchpoints. Just be sure to have a system for collecting and sharing these insights with your team. A dedicated “Voice of Customer” channel in Slack or regular insight-sharing sessions can help keep customer needs at the forefront of your development process.

Keeping everyone aligned on the product vision can be difficult when you can’t gather around a physical product roadmap. This is where digital roadmapping tools can be especially useful. Platforms like ProductPlan, Productboard or Aha! Allow you to create visual roadmaps that can be easily shared and updated in real-time. Consider implementing regular “roadmap review” sessions where the team can discuss upcoming priorities, potential roadblocks, and how individual work ties into the bigger picture. These sessions help maintain a sense of shared purpose and direction, even when team members work independently.

It’s important not to overlook documentation within your roadmap process, too. In an office, you might be able to get away with passing around tribal knowledge through casual conversations. In a remote setting, thorough and accessible documentation becomes crucial. Invest time in creating and maintaining a robust knowledge base. This could include everything from technical specifications to design guidelines to decision logs.

Finally, remember the human element in your product development process. Remote work can sometimes feel isolating, especially during intense development cycles. Consider implementing “virtual pair programming” sessions or “design buddy” systems where team members can collaborate in real time on specific tasks. This helps with knowledge sharing and maintains a sense of camaraderie and shared purpose.

Remember, adapting your product development processes for remote work can help you leverage the unique advantages of remote work—like increased flexibility and diverse perspectives—while finding creative solutions to its challenges. The key is to remain flexible and open to experimentation. What works for one team might not work for another. Be prepared to iterate on your processes as you would on your product. After all, your development process is a product that should be continuously improved to better serve your team and, ultimately, your customers.

Fostering Collaboration and Innovation in a Distributed Product Team

When your team is spread across different locations, time zones, and perhaps even continents, fostering collaboration and sparking innovation can feel like trying to light a fire with wet matches. But here’s the thing: your distributed product team can become a hotbed of creativity and collaborative energy with the right approach.

Let’s start by addressing a common misconception: innovation requires physical proximity. Sure, something must be said for the energy of a room full of people brainstorming around a whiteboard. However remote work offers its own unique advantages for innovation. For one, it allows you to build a team of diverse talents unrestricted by geographic boundaries. This diversity of perspectives can be a powerful catalyst for fresh ideas and novel solutions.

So, how do you tap into this potential? One approach is to create dedicated “innovation time” in your team’s schedule. This could be a weekly or bi-weekly session where the team collaborates virtually to explore new ideas, discuss industry trends, or tackle challenging problems. The key is to make this time sacred – no status updates, routine tasks, or pure creative exploration.

Michael Sacca shared an interesting insight in his conversation with Paul McAvinchey: remote brainstorming sessions often suffer from awkward silences that people rush to fill, disrupting the natural flow of ideas. To combat this, Sacca’s team experimented with longer video calls where team members could pop in and out, mimicking the ebb and flow of an in-person brainstorming session. This approach allows for both focused work and spontaneous collaboration.

Another powerful tool for fostering innovation is the concept of “virtual cross-pollination.” In a physical office, ideas often spark from chance encounters between people from different teams or departments. In a remote setting, you need to create these opportunities intentionally. Consider setting up regular “mix and match” sessions where team members from different functions are paired up for short, agenda-free chats. These conversations can lead to unexpected insights and collaborations.

There’s also a lot of value in shared experiences and igniting a sense of camaraderie. This is where team rituals come into play. Many remote teams have succeeded with virtual coffee chats, movie clubs, or even online game sessions. They may seem awkward to plan for, but intentionally finding ways to create more informal interactions helps build the personal connections that fuel great teamwork. For instance, Sacca’s team at Dribbble held a “coffee talk” every other week, providing a casual space for team bonding.

Maintaining team morale in a remote setting also means being mindful of burnout. The lines between work and personal life can easily blur when working from home. Phil Hornsby emphasizes the importance of setting clear boundaries and encouraging team members to establish routines that allow for downtime and personal life. As a product leader, you can set the tone by respecting these boundaries and encouraging your team to disconnect and recharge.

All in all, the only way your product team will truly collaborate well in a remote setting is if thoughtful planning is done in advance and if you keep an open mindset to trying new things.

Remote Customer Research and Data-Driven Decision Making

In remote product management, the distance between you and your customers can feel vast. Here’s a plot twist for you: this distance can be a catalyst for more insightful, data-driven decision-making. Let’s dive into how to turn remote customer research into your secret weapon.

First things first: forget the notion that meaningful customer research requires in-person interaction. Megan Cook from Atlassian shared that her team had conducted much of their research remotely before the shift to fully distributed work. They use video conferencing tools to allow customers to share their workspaces and demonstrate their workflows in real time. This approach often provides more authentic insights than traditional in-person observations in artificial settings.

Here’s where it gets interesting: remote research can open doors that might have been closed in a physical setting. Think about it. Geographic constraints no longer limit you. You can easily connect with users from different countries, cultures, and contexts, giving you a more diverse and representative sample for your research.

However, remote user research isn’t without its challenges. Cook notes that too many observers on a video call can intimidate participants. To mitigate this, her team limits the number of observers per session and holds separate “watch parties” where the wider team can view recordings and discuss insights. This approach makes participants more comfortable and turns research analysis into a collaborative team activity.

Now, let’s talk about gathering feedback. In the remote world, you have many tools at your disposal. Surveys, user testing platforms, and analytics tools can all provide valuable data. But don’t overlook the power of simple video calls. Phil Hornsby points out that customers are often more available for quick video chats now that everyone is accustomed to remote communication. This increased accessibility can lead to more frequent and diverse customer touchpoints.

But here’s the kicker: with all this data at your fingertips, how do you make sense of it all? This is where the “data-driven” part of our discussion comes in. In a distributed environment, leveraging data and analytics becomes even more crucial. Without the ability to observe team dynamics in person, product managers need to rely heavily on quantitative data to inform their decisions.

However, it’s not just about collecting data – it’s about democratizing access. Michael Sacca emphasizes the importance of transparency in remote teams. Consider creating dashboards that give everyone visibility into key metrics and customer feedback. Tools like Amplitude or Mixpanel can be invaluable for this. When everyone on the team has access to the same data, it fosters a culture of informed decision-making and reduces the risk of siloed information.

But remember, numbers don’t tell the whole story. The art of remote product management lies in balancing quantitative insights with qualitative understanding. Encourage your team to investigate the “why” behind the numbers. This could involve follow-up customer interviews or deeper dives into user behavior patterns.

Here’s an idea to make data analysis more engaging: host “data parties.” These are dedicated sessions where team members collaboratively explore data sets, looking for insights and patterns. It’s like a book club, but instead of discussing literature, you uncover user behaviors and product trends. Fostering a data-driven culture while promoting team bonding can be fun.

Now, let’s address the elephant in the room: how do you ensure that all this research and data drives your product strategy? In a remote setting, it’s crucial to have clear processes for turning insights into action. Regular strategy sessions where the team reviews key findings and adjusts the product roadmap accordingly help ensure your data-driven insights drive your product forward.

One effective approach is to create a “research repository” – a centralized place where all customer insights, data analysis, and resulting decisions are documented. This helps in knowledge sharing and tracking how customer insights influence your product over time.

Lastly, don’t forget about the power of storytelling. In a remote environment, data can easily feel cold and disconnected from real user experiences. Combat this by encouraging your team to share customer stories alongside the data. These narratives can bring the numbers to life and help create empathy for your users across the team.

Remember, the goal of all this research and data analysis isn’t just to accumulate information but to drive action. By embracing the unique opportunities of remote customer research and doubling down on data-driven decision-making, you can build products that truly resonate with your users, no matter where your team is located.

In the end, remote product management doesn’t have to mean distant product management. With the right approach to customer research and data analysis, you can get closer to your users than ever – all from the comfort of your home office.

Leadership and Stakeholder Management in Remote Settings

Leading a product team and managing stakeholders in a remote environment requires a unique blend of skills, strategies, and patience. We’ve already discussed trust – but another critical skill required of remote product leaders is influence. In an office, you might rely on impromptu conversations or reading the room to gauge sentiment and build support for your ideas. In a remote setting, you need to be more intentional about how you communicate and influence. Megan Cook from Atlassian suggests communicating key messages and decisions in different ways with different stakeholders. You can do this effectively by creating a “stakeholder map” for your product. Identify key stakeholders, their priorities, and their preferred communication styles. Then, tailor your approach accordingly. For some, a detailed written proposal might be most effective. For others, a visual presentation or a quick video chat might be the way to go.

When it comes to managing stakeholder relationships remotely, regular, structured check-ins become crucial. Set up recurring meetings with key stakeholders to keep them informed and address any concerns. But don’t limit yourself to formal meetings – look for ways to maintain more casual connections, too. 

Presenting product strategies to remote leadership requires extra preparation. Create compelling, self-explanatory visuals that can stand on their own. Consider sending pre-read materials before the meeting so leaders can come prepared with thoughtful questions.

Phil Hornsby suggests using collaborative tools during these presentations to make them more engaging – just as you would for engaging with your product team. For instance, you could use a virtual whiteboard tool to map out your strategy in real time, allowing leaders to interact with the content and ask questions as they go. This interactive approach can help maintain engagement and ensure everyone’s on the same page. 

One often overlooked aspect of remote leadership is the importance of empathy. In a distributed team, it’s easy for team members to feel isolated or disconnected. As a leader, part of your job is to bridge these gaps. Take the time to understand each team member’s unique challenges in their remote work environment. Some might juggle childcare responsibilities, while others might deal with unreliable internet connections. Acknowledging these challenges and working together to find solutions can go a long way in building trust and loyalty.

Another key aspect of remote leadership is fostering a culture of continuous learning. Without organic knowledge sharing in an office, you need to create intentional opportunities for growth. This could involve setting up a mentorship program, organizing virtual lunch-and-learn sessions, or making a library of learning resources that team members can access at their own pace.

Finally, your role as a remote product leader extends beyond just managing the product. You’re also responsible for managing the energy and morale of your team. In a distributed environment, it’s easy for work to become all-consuming. Encourage your team to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Lead by example by respecting off-hours and taking time off yourself.

Great remote leadership isn’t about controlling from afar – it’s about empowering your team to do their best work wherever they are.

Summing it all up

Remote product management isn’t just a temporary shift—it’s a fundamental reimagining of how we build products and lead teams. Throughout this exploration, success in this new landscape hinges on intentional communication, trust-based leadership, and creative approaches to collaboration and innovation. From hiring practices prioritizing self-motivation and communication skills to leveraging technology for more inclusive customer research, remote work offers unique opportunities to enhance our product management practices.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. The key is to remain flexible, experiment with different approaches, and continuously refine your processes. Embrace the challenges as opportunities for growth and innovation.

Now, it’s time to take action. If you’re in a remote-first world, consider committing to doing the following to move you and your team closer to where you want to be:

1. Evaluate your current remote work practices. Identify areas where you can improve communication, collaboration, or decision-making processes.
2. Experiment with new tools or methodologies discussed in this article. Whether you implement “data parties” or try out virtual innovation hubs, commit to testing at least one new approach in the next month.
3. Foster a culture of continuous learning and adaptation. Set up regular check-ins with your team to discuss what’s working, what isn’t, and how you can collectively improve your remote product management practices.

By embracing these strategies and maintaining a growth mindset, you can adapt to remote product management and thrive in it, creating better products and stronger teams in the process.

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