Bart’s Book Notes: Inspired by Marty Cagan
Key Learnings + Bullet Points Summary
INSPIRED introduces basic concepts of product management. It describes the role of a product manager, their relation to developers and designers and leads us through steps of discovery and delivery processes.
Key Learning #1. Reference customers help with discovery
To enhance our discovery process, we can engage a group of reference customers to work with us.
They are our beta testers and subject matter experts. If we can make them really happy, then we probably can make the broad market happy.
Not only are they decent beta-testers, but after we launch the product, we’ll already have a group of users who can advocate for us and refer us.
Good reference customers are those who:
- are our target,
- have a problem our product solves,
- are not obsessed with technology,
- have time and willingness to help us.
It’s important not to ask them to pay for the product or pay them for being part of the group — it builds a slightly different relationship. Treat them like colleagues — we need each other equally.
