My Journey towards a Capable PM : ‘Watching 20 Years of Product Management in 25 Minutes by Dave Wascha’ — Karan Rohera
20 Years of Product Management in 25 Minutes by Dave Wascha — YouTube
My Learnings :
1)Listen to your customers while building a product
Product Reference : SMALT-The smart home device that elevates your dining experience (mysmalt.com)
Integrating putting salt in the food using the device ,asking Alexa to put salt, Non user friendly, not needed, difficult for a non tech person to use it ,added step of putting in password ,they did not pay attention to customer’s needs.
2)Don’t listen to your customers while providing solution
Product Reference : Oral B Toothbrush : Pulsar Manual Toothbrushes (oralb.com)
Providing solutions is our job, not of customers, they have problems and we have to find the best possible way to find solution in the way that all stakeholders are benefitted from it.
3)Watch The Competition: Instantaneous Feedback From Customers
Product Reference : Oral B Toothbrush : Pulsar Manual Toothbrushes (oralb.com)
Watch the competition and each and every product they take out, what features they put in, how customers react to them , watch out for :
a)YouTube Video review comments
b)Tweets
c) E-Marketplace Reviews like Amazon, Flipkart , etc
4) Don’t Watch The Competition : Don’t get taken in by new technologies that competitors are putting in always , Always ask yourself will implementing this solve customer’s problems, if you find it does , go for it, otherwise let it be .
Examples of it :
Negative : One plus putting in not effective 4th camera as a marketing gimmick in One Plus Nord because of it’s competitors .
Positive: Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn putting in stories feature like snapchat
5)Be a thief : Idea Curation
Don’t have to come up with all the ideas, my job as a product manager is to solve my customers problem so take ideas from other products/services and make it your own
Example : Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn putting in stories feature like snapchat
6) Get paid : Always ask yourself is the Customer willing to pay for the feature/product ?
Always check if the customer’s problem is getting solved with the feature and if that problem is deriving the utility value for being paid .
Product Reference :Evernote: Compare plans and get started for free | Evernote
Evernote Changed it’s pricing mechanism :
a)Limited the product value by limiting the number of devices that users could use in free plan suddenly along with various other free features
b) Put in choices with a lot of tech words which were difficult for non tech people to understand thereby people not understanding if they should really pay for those features
Verdict : They solved their own problem of earning but ignored the convenience and justifying the Utility of Charging to Customers.
7) Cost of delay: Delay causes huge loses
We put off making decision for many reasons. every-time we put off making a decision, we are destroying value, the features and the products we ship have a limited shelf life and the longer it takes them to get to market the less value they have. so every-time we’re thinking of putting off that decision, we’re destroying value. every time we are leaving a question that someone has go unanswered, you’re killing value.
8) Learn to Say No : Don’t say yes to every stakeholder just to make them happy, your customer comes first, don’t integrate just any random feature without proper research because someone important is asking.
9) Don’t be a visionary : Work hard, do your research ,keep understanding the customers problem and keep solving it.
Final Verdict : Customers come first ,work hard for your customers keep researching and keep them happy, even while integrating new features see it’s value and utility for the amount charged for providing it , even while moving forward for growth of company keep your customer first, growth will happen automatically.
It was quite insightful for me to learn from a person who was in this field working when I myself was a tiny tot, he broadened my horizons and I will for sure be taking care of these points while working as a PM.
