Your weekly product management reading. The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
Please share this digest with your product friends.
Answer: You can't!
Damn, tomorrow is hard!
For example, with the Startup Digest, Peter and I measure number of subscribers, and engagement measures like CTR. But, we also debate whether that matters for the future. What if we envision a future in which we serve our readers differently? What if we want an entirely new direction for the product and want a whole NEW set of users.
(By the way, our data collection is very limited, and we have as yet been unable to do cohort analysis.)
Driving the roadmap is not all fun. And you risk driving in circles.
What to do?
I do not have all the answers. I know what I am doing about it. Break it down to small problems that I can do something about.
As someone once said: “the most interesting problems are problems you can solve!”
And being as data-driven as possible. We are collecting data about past usage, and continuing to talk to our customers.
These are doable.
For you, the small things may not surface answers immediately, but expose you to the threads of ideas that lead to an answer (check out Dan Shipper's post below).
What are your product challenges as you look today and tomorrow?
So, I do this digest for my own reasons. But, as a human being, I am curious to know what you think. It matters to me.
Do me a favor and anonymously vote how you feel about it.
And thank you.
“Maybe the answer is that, like the case of Mitochondrial Eve, there are certain events that happen in our lives that we can’t tell are important until many months or years after they have occurred.””
“The idea that increasing complexity could actually improve your product seems to strike more people as heretical, so I’ll start there. My favorite example is the airplane cockpit, pictured above.”
Really? It's interesting. Take a look and see what you think!
You know that I enjoy doing product teardowns from time to time. So, I worked on one for Instacart. Do you have yours to share for future digests? Would love to see them! By the way, the friend who got me hooked on these, Neil McCarthy of Yammer, is speaking on Nov 11: Enterprise Freemium.
From the folks who brought you “Software is Eating the World.”
Interesting to observe myself consuming more and more content via medium. What about its design lead to successful win in best content and best contributors?
Silicon Valley and SF
November 3: From Yammer to Do, PM Q&A with Jason Shah, via Google Hangout. (online and FREE)
November 4: Designing to Persuade and Engage with Andi Galpern of Cascade SF, via Google Hangout. (online and FREE)
November 11: Don’t Be Afraid of Enterprise Freemium, with Neil McCarthy, Yammer Director of PM. ($5)
November 14: Startup Weekend: Flight ($100).
November 18: Building the Right Product with Weebly’s Ryan Glasgow
November 19: Products that Count: You Are What You Buy ($25).
December 12-14: Lean Startup Machine SF. 20% savings with “lsm20”.
March 20: Culture Summit 2015. ($250 - 350). Contact me about corporate team seats.
Other
Recording of Carlos’s webinar 10/15: Transition from Engineering to PM.
Want to teach via Hangout? Please share product management experience!
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If you find any value and encouragement in the PMFT Digest, please consider becoming a Supporter with a small recurring or one-time donation of your choosing, between a cup of coffee and a mission taco.