Category Archives: Product Managment

Chasing markets not leads!

Start-up Go-to-market is a dance between searching for that market/product fit and opportunity. The more “functional” your product is the more everyone you meet will have a new direction sand application for your widget. The challenge is weeding out the many to find the few.

Keep in mind the bowling ball structure, seek one or two industry segments that promise high returns and rapid adoption. This is the nose under the tent balanced with a segment that can influence.

Many make the mistake of choosing “lead pins” that are not so willing to promote you and the gains you have delivered to them. If your solution is not publicly visible, then your customer may want to keep their competitive edge to themselves as long as possible This does not help you create the constructive collisions that allow you to extend the efforts of that first application to others.

Leads that turn quickly create revenue and revenue is what it is all about. But if you have two leads in different segments the company needs to choice which has more opportunity at creating kinetic energy. When you are starving for revenue everything looks like a great game changing opportunity. This is where mission and documented, universally understood goals are important.

Some day you will have staff and cycles enough to chase every blue sky opportunity that your lead generation churns from the market, but Not until you have the flywheel running on its own energy not that of the first investors.

All marketing is roadmap driven if it is to be effective, this is why I still believe in Product managers and founders investing in “Fuzzy Front end“ work. I often hear that this is a waste of time and energy or that one can not plan what will happen so do not waste the time. If you drive down the street and have no idea of where you are going and suddenly turn left have you made a change or a choice.

Change happens when you knowingly move from path A to path B based on information. A recent state-up I helped Pivot was on a chosen path to B2C distribution when a new study came back and showed that the market was not going to pay for the service directly they wanted to have it supported by a larger trusted entity. On the other side a few years ago there was a start-up that was convinced that the B2B path was their future even after being refused by almost every major player at the executive level.

The market is the king, your ideas and concepts are suggestions. The market is right and always will be. Pivot and be willing to listen to the markets. The company that moved to a B2B approach had a few Consumers open to trying but that was not sustainable nor had it the promise of generating sufficient revenues. It was tempting to use funding to “just sell more” vs. change.  Changing was the right choice in the end.

Twitt

Courage to Focus

Just read a great article on folks who have a “Project on the side”. These semi committed entrepreneurs are judged as disloyal to their full time employers and costing productivity when they will fail anyway.

Ok so, I buy that they will most likely fail but that is a statistically safe statement but does nothing to talk about cause and effect. Most great ideas come from being in the stream of business. One has an idea and moves to solve that problem, great as long as it does not directly conflict with your employer.

At some point I agree that you need to commit to your idea and that comes in leaps. Your first commitment is to begin working on a solution, then to show it to someone, then to commit to building around it, asking for help, sharing your vision and finally the first pivot.

One of my favorite quotes from Rockefeller comes to play in this, “There are two times when a man starts a business, when he has nothing to lose and when he has much and does not mind loosing some.”

Both come into play for every company, the start-up is always loosing assets while building value, we call this burn rate. (BTW if you are in a “Start-up” with no burn rate you are not building anything) Energy in is consumed to reshape it and obey the laws of physics changing it to something else. We are not talking about burning your time in a coffee shop. That is just waste. You must actively pursue and create. This is risky.

The second part is also always there which is providing the resources to burn. That is an investor, VC, PE or your savings, at some point all of the above.

Each step in building a product and subsequently a company asks for courage and focus  at a greater level from everyone involved. Focus morphs into commitment when you have customers. Very few customers are ever a one-time event. So now that someone has paid you their assets for your services they have placed confidence in you, respect that and deliver your best efforts at honoring them.

Now back to the start and that “Project on the side” yes the longer you do not have the courage to leap with both feet into the project the lower your chance of success. The inverse is not always true nor does early leaping raise chance of success. This is why investors higher experienced teams.

One learns the art of action through failure. When is a tire just slipping and needs a little help from the other wheels to find traction again and when are you stuck in the mud? Humans are learning machines, this is what we cannot translate to other machines. We work by learning and by action. Some are more ritual than others and that has it’s place, but unlike my cat who does the exact same thing every day, humans require diversity or they will turn disruptive and tear down the machine.

Everyone has their own level of comfort with routine and discomfort with disruption, a great team has a broad spectrum here and knows their own and others place.

Twitt

Culture of Respect Cross-Functionally?

A good friend of mine teaches Corporate Governance. One of the key tenets is to do what you do and respect others, empower others and hold others accountable to do what they do. Boards that try to manage over the C-Level or just the CEO send a message to the CEO and the entire company that they have a low opinion of that persons skills and are comfortable dismissing them or their leadership.

So guess what people start to do within that organization? Yes, dismiss each other! My friend helped me with a difficult board situation once, applying frank and defined roles to the executive and myself helped me turn the company around rapidly. Later I chose to try this with a 6 man start-up and the CTO and a board member had a bad marriage/addictive relationship. Knew in a few weeks that without significant change this was soon to be a flush down the tube scenario. Being a positive person there was one thing I could do to save investors value and toughed it out for a few months to achieve that goal.

We work across groups of people, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Operations and yes engineering. Some fields take more education some more practice. Some functions take social skills others best be left alone to perform. No one is an island, while it may not take a village we are connected as a peninsula at best.

The best way to honor anyone is to listen to them, be honestly curious about what they do and the challenges they have. When you keep things close to your chest and do not share some think it is being smart, honestly that is the furthest from the truth. Those who don’t share openly do not respect others and the goal, much of the time it comes from insecurity in themselves.

Trust is one of those things that one needs to show to get. Trust others to fulfill their commitments and they will trust you with yours. Take time to be clear and understand, have the courage to be wrong and feedback to them what you heard. No product gets to market without all the parts needed or it fails. Lead through influence by inspiring through your behavior.

Twitt

Real Growth Metrics?

There is a great article in the WSJ today from the editor of the US news and world report on our economy and lack of true growth. Growth numbers are misleading us through shell games that shift the baseline to make employment look better. The inflation number is changed through pulling things in and out, core vs. real. Stocks raising not on growth but on trying to balance a deflating currency value.  Five years now of playing this game has screened the realities to the point that we are disconnected from our baseline that measures where we are.

This is not a political rant but a case study on what I see in companies across the world. Someone has vested themselves in the success of a product or business unit and begun shifting the baseline to buy time for it to work while the unit underperforms the models and expectations.

Like economics the refrain is we just need to message better of our next release will nail it. Or a new ad campaign. The leader is the one who has the courage to stand on the model and call a failing a failing. I recently got a message from a CEO for a permeate role and am considering it because his self-description was one of having the courage to fail honestly. How many of us do?

Shifting the baseline to make the picture better is a common trap that starts with a little white lie, then two then, more! FI you seek the gems that help you evolve then you will find them in an honest review of data that starts at a baseline and stays there. Altering the baseline to look better is a path to having no true picture of where you are at; it may blind others to your short comings but more so blinds you from the opportunities for a pivot!

Twitt

You can recover from a Production problem not a Design Problem

We have all heard the saying measure twice cut once. Production is a downstream activity, so the closer you get to the end of almost any process recovery is more rapid and impacting less items in the project plan.

Beyond the obvious issues here there is also a much bigger one in that the Design part of the innovation process is much more fluid and full of open requirements. My Favorite is testing; I could define a test that would prove the sky is not blue.

Survey wording and sample selection are key to any result. Chose a more word conscious sample and use absolutes, bingo the sky is not blue as it changes and the perception through human eyes is a band of light technically closer to what we call purple.

Design is the place that solutions fail. The graveyard of ideas is rightfully full, the question is, Are we sending ideas to the round file based on data that is sound? Failing fast is easy to do, much harder is identifying the successful concepts fast!

In the production world we do root cause analysis when the ball comes of the line square. But when ideas flop it is rare to see a company  do that honest review of their funnel or testing. The times I have heard marketing or sales blamed but they were not in the “Concept hardening” process. Teams are frightened to release ideas to sales or the market. Sales always sells futures not what is in the bag, Yea, they can call their base with new stuff. Those phones get answered with a friendly voice. Cold calls can hurt!

Honest testing and idea evaluation is painful for all but every simple action pays off. The ROI of upfront work and thinking ahead at the concept level saves time and cash more than any other event in the New Product Development Process!

Think through the user experience, write the stories and have others read them that are not invested in the outcome.

Twitt

Business Plan Innovation?

Yes! You read that correctly you can find innovation in the business plan, the model not the accounting. Innovation on the accounting side can lead to incarceration, so let’s not try that.

Your model can lead to innovation that the market values if it supports consumer behavior or their needs. In the mobile world the model is often one that involves partnerships or being the best at some form of back end service. This is innovation!

The entire idea of the “Cloud” is innovation as it truly is not a thing but a concept that shifts risk from the consumer to the vendor; this is true for SaaS also.

Often we see new ways of packaging and selling as Business level innovation. Sales teams can be a great inspiration for this type of innovation when you ask them what are the most common questions from their customers outside features. Also ask them how the terms of sale could be augmented to drive more sales?

These are process innovations and many will push against these stating ease of replication by competitors I would answer that that is great! When your competitor copies your business terms there is no better way to empower the clarity of your leadership. Remember there are always two groups of needs in any sale, the user and the business itself.

 

Twitt

Innovation Is Not Academic

Innovation is about experimentation and action not an exercise for the academic minded MBA. There is a great push recently for “process free” innovation activity without goals. Many see this as the path to incredible disruptive innovation, but I cry foul. It is a HBR study that often is sited that uses the demise of the single function GPS and mapping devices at the hands of the mobile handset as a case study.

Frankly the innovation was the mobile platform and the inclusion of GPS functions into the handset. The top companies saw this coming and migrated to new industrial applications of automated control platforms years ahead. While we may not use our Garmin in the car for directions, Garmin is now on every bicycle and runners wrist. This is a space where the mobile phone fails, often confined by size weight and battery life.

The GPS function was embedded in Phones for Emergency services regulation adherence which was led by the same companies sited and shocked by this free flowing hackathon that embedded Mapping in mobile phones.

Frankly this not earth shattering it was a pivot that the large companies saw coming. When you take an approach not being aware of the environmental is a critical failure. Those who thing “free flowing Innovation” is the future will meet in the market the others that are doing similar things and if they are surprised they may also find they are out of touch with the market value.

Failing to plan and do market research is not noble or exciting, it is a waste of investment time and capital. Research first is good business and should walk hand and hand with technology innovation.

Twitt

Show me the passion and I will show you the money!

Passion is the core of any PM or entrepreneur, but what is passion? Screaming, ranting, speaking over others, driving a solution or idea? NO, NO, NO that is for politicians and tabloid news,(All News these days).

Passion is confidence and understanding and demonstrated by an openness to honest challenge, that responds in conversation and exploration. Zealots are a dime a dozen, they always have been. The person that is engaged in a concept wants the concept to explode, they want the problem to be addressed and are willing to walk through fire to get there. This si the face of true passion.

Passion is about the thing, the problem the adding of value and yes making a few bucks reward at the end. Money will follow true passion unlike advocacy that gets a fun glance. We look and smile at the sign that says the end  is near but invest in the guy who is selling food supplies or building the vehicle that wards off the asteroid hit.

Passion is about finding solutions not a problem. The passionate person has spotted the problem and defined it in some way, they have a first approach. Passion like this allows for Pivots and that is the bottom line. Show me a person who can pivot and listens over a solution looking to be born and I will show you a person that will change lives and the way the world turns. It is like Jujitsu, use the problems energy not yours!

Twitt

Value over Brand!

Online education over the next few years will shift the value/brand equation in secondary education. This shift will drive better education by better educators and deliver topical education from the leaders in any topic area over educators who have read others work and deliver their own interpolations of materials.

Add to the equation the ability to refer a student directly through links to alternate concepts or deeper knowledge on questions and you have a complete non-idealistic education. Thought leaders will have motivation to excel in a field and compete in an open market against others.

So now the brand shifts from the university to the educator! Wow! The market is a powerful

force for driving excellence and quality. Today folks go to university for reasons other than excellence in content anyway. I hear from kids all the time that factors of proximity to home, Sports teams, party potential and other things drive choice over content.

Here is to the future where the expert owns the brand not the university> Markets Rock!

Here is a great article MORE

Twitt

The difference between action and activity

Why do we hate what we labor so long to create? Because we seek more!

Passion creates the will and desire for true action. Activity is doing things like having meetings and clearing e-mail or having coffee. We all need some activity but the A players strive for action over activity. Below is a great start at determining A players:

A player: Fully self-sufficient and takes initiative that positively impacts the company.
B player: Does some things well, but not fully self-sufficient, and not consistently strong.
C player: Just average, and does not excel in any area.
D player: Poor performer, and shouldn’t last long if you are a half-capable manager.
F player: Should be out…like yesterday
A players strive for Action that makes a difference, they constantly stretch themselves to active more. These are the one that live in the small and start-up companies, who understand the value of activity that steers impact in the market or industry.

Self-sufficiency is not going it alone but the ability to. When I think of self-sufficiency I think of the naturally curios mind that can look at data, find solutions and present to others what they have found. C Players are ones that do task after task not able to see beyond what was requested or able to spot opportunities or problems. C players are often more socially minded, political in nature and care take for the whole group. This is how they add value, good for the backend office processing roles.

B players are the majority of climbers in companies but present a big problem to the entrepreneur who needs to rely on others. When chasing your dream you need other A players because they do not need to be chased or cycled back on. A player are the ones that do short stand-ups B players use that as a forum to fill the spaces in their initiative.

As a lifetime leader most PMs have A player DNA and struggle with their just do it attitude in a world where acting cross functionally and with others is critical to success. Great leaders do not lead in a vacuum nor do they check every step of the way with the team.

Twitt