Blog
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Responsible Use Of Tech Debt
Tech debt, like financial debt, is neither good nor bad. Debt helps you buy a house today when you don’t have the cash. It helps an early-stage startup write code rapidly so as to win its first customers and funding. But, the interest on a debt may reduce the cash you have to invest in…
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Think About Competitors?
Focus on customers and don’t think about competitors is a cliche in startupland. Context matters on when it is and is not relevant. Broadly speaking, focus or obsess over customers, existing and prospective, and be vigilant about competitors. YC advises “worrying about your competitors is nearly always a very bad idea.” Notice the caveat, “nearly”.…
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Positioning
The company must attractively position its product in the minds of its target customers. This is after the target customers have been selected, as well as an opportunity to win them over. The company’s unique value proposition is formally expressed in a positioning statement; here’s the HBS template. The target customers are primarily prospective customers. …
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User Manual
A user manual for yourself? I first heard of this concept from my spouse. And then I found the New York Times article that introduced this. I was intrigued. Here’s my user manual. This is a one-slide template that contains four panels: There are several templates. Some templates include Myers-Briggs and other test results. I…
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Product Team Skills
Successful careers in product roles require skills across three areas: Each area has skills that are necessary for a product team member: PM, designer, analyst, ops, PMM, and other product-adjacent roles. A new hire builds these faster with a structured ramp. The depth in a given skill is expected to be higher for more experienced…
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Proactive Derisking To Drive Product Success
After a SpaceX rocket blew up, Elon Musk said, ”Given the options, I prefer to learn from success.” Space is hard. SaaS products are less hard. So, how do we innovate and learn from success? Do proactive derisking. 1. Anticipate and force-rank risks Think through SVPG’s four buckets of risk: value risk, usability risk, feasibility…
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Product Launches Done Right With GA Checklists
General availability (GA) is when a product is available to the general market, and is not limited like in an alpha or beta release. Here’s my GA Checklist Template for product launches. The template is a checklist. Reason is, as the checklist manifesto says, it helps us avoid mistakes, which are often a result of…
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Burden of Proof For Product Opportunities
Product teams face a challenge when justifying investments in a product opportunity, despite ambiguity and uncertainty. Making hard choices, such as this, is a core part of building great products. Before a go/no-go decision is made on the investment, the product team is typically asked for their confidence level in winning with the opportunity. While…
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No I In User Story
The typical user story template is of the form: As X, I want to do Y so that Z. X is the user’s role, Y is the functionality the user wants, and Z is the benefit. A reason given for using the first-person pronoun, “I”, is that the “person’s mind goes instantly to imagining he…
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Where To Invest Time As A Product Manager
“The product manager is accountable for ensuring the solution is both valuable and viable,” says Marty Cagan of SVPG in this sample PM job description. Valuable for the customer and viable for the business. This translates to the PM working on a variety of tasks through the week, and often through the day. Melissa Perri, senior…
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