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In my work with startups I noticed two common pitfalls?—?opposite Photo by Daniel Abbatt from Pexels The best startups I work with have truly embraced the lean startup methodology. Working with dozens of startups, I do see, however, companies that are implementing it wrong. Lean Startup is no different in that sense.
If you are on the journey toward product-market fit, you know it’s not easy. Every new product has its own fit to find. One of the hardest challenges of any product and any startup is of course reaching product-market fit. product-market fit under the hood. So here it is?—?product-market
Yet in Mark’s experience working with and mentoring startups, he’s found that many entrepreneurs go with intuition over information. Those risks can be fatal: Mark has found a 75% failure rate for both Series A and Series C startups (as he presented during his 2019 SaaStr talk.). I think that’s message-market fit.
is the CPO of a startup in transition. In fact, the lean startup approach says that there will always be a better one around the corner, but you must take the turn first to see it. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an Sounds confusing? Photo by Cup of Couple from Pexels W.
Many startups feel that the only thing preventing them from selling their product is a great demo. Here’s how to use your product demo smartly, and avoid demo abuse. And if your product is so innovative that you are aiming to create a new category as many startups do, it’s even worse. The truth is quite different.
As a startup, you usually work so hard to bring each customer, that the thought of losing them is literally painful. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an So I decided to put in writing what I usually say to these companies and how to do it right. not looking backward is easier than ever before.
Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash As a proud member of the startup nation, startups are all around me. Every now and then, early-stage founders approach me to hear about their product idea and give them feedback. It’s no wonder there are many tools that try to resolve this. Here’s why.
Last month, for example, I met a startup, which had a good indication from the market that their initial product direction was viable. The people they talked to wanted to test their product, they loved what they saw, and were intrigued to hear and get more. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an
especially startups on their way to product-market fit, the ARR itself might not be important. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an an executive’s guide to strategic product management is waiting for you at www.ganotnoa.com/ebook Originally published at [link] on April 26, 2022.
Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash Most of the CEOs I work with, understand that the role of the product leader is very important. Whenever I talk to startup CEOs, especially first-timers, the discussion on product goes immediately to UX and wireframes. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an
Photo by Ono Kosuki from Pexels OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are a useful tool for goal setting and team alignment, and in recent years they have gone from being used primarily in quantitative parts of the organization (namely sales and marketing) to being very popular in product and technology as well.
Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels Educating the market has a bad reputation, and rightfully so. It’s nearly impossible to do, and even if you can do it, in most cases your startup won’t survive the time it would take in order to see its fruits. Many startups fall into this category. Many blue-ocean startups start here.
Many startups fall into this category. Many blue-ocean startups start here. If people don’t want to get far, far away, even if your product can teleport them, it won’t succeed. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an If your pitch says you are “reinventing something”?—?that’s
Here is a new way to look at product management goals, and make them a useful tool for both you and your team. was the COO of a Series C startup. He was brought in as the startup entered hyper-growth and needed someone to help with all of that scaling. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an
But one of the major concepts you absolutely need to get your head around is Product-Market Fit. If you don’t do your research, and understand how your product fits into the market (see what we did there?) What Exactly is Product-Market Fit? How Do I Know if I Have No Product-Market Fit?
You are going to invest a ton of money in developing the right product for the market (hence the importance of product-market fit ), but once you have it, and you know how to sell it, you can scale exponentially. That’s the whole reason VCs invest in startups. If you are only beginning, it’s clear why.
Here is how a product strategy can help you create business results, even when the market is not in your favor. I sat with an entrepreneur who was helping me with market research for the work I do with startup founders and explained to him what I do. Product strategy is a special kind of strategy.
Level 3: Deciding What to Draw When I joined Twiggle — a seed stage startup — as the VP of Product, I thought I was extremely ready. I already led a large product group at eBay and knew I would manage a much smaller one at Twiggle so this was also a no-brainer. And they go far beyond the product itself.
Seeing Revenue From a New Product This is one of the mistakes that I see very often in my work with startup founders: you launch a new product and you put revenue goals for a few months down the road, typically a quarter. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an
The Israeli Perspective In London, I felt that Israel truly is the startup nation. They are not even Amazon and Google which were born as tech product companies and are now large corporates (that have major product centers in Israel as well). This is where again I saw the startup nation in action?—?in for good and bad.
The journey to product-market fit might seem random, but it actually has a well defined high-level structure. Here is part two of the guide that will help you find your way to product-market fit. This is an important principle in the product-market fit journey. Where are you? Do you have a clear ICP?
They take an opportunity to grow in their career, say as the CPO of a startup or as a Director in a larger company. What this means is that when you define your ideal customer profile, you should think about the steps that they would need to go through before they are ready for your product. 50 people or so?—?the
When I recommend this to the startups that I work with, it usually translates to having senior people on the calls with customers (because that’s how startups work), trying out the new pitch, and feeling it themselves. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an Interested to learn more?
I created a model called “The Product Circuit”, which I have since used in product strategy processes with dozens of companies and in my lectures when I explain the journey to product-market fit. If you have worked in an early-stage startup, you have most likely witnessed, participated in, or led this process.
My personal passion is to bring back this very important dimension into product management and leadership. For example, your title can be Senior Product Manager but you are actually required to do product leadership much more than product management (for example if you are the only product person in a startup).
When I talk to the startups I consult to , or with the CPO Bootcamp participants, I always say that building a solid product strategy isn’t like solving a math equation. In one such startup, that asked to start in the middle, we ended up spending a full hour discussing the first sentence. It read “we focus on the SaaS market”.
As a mature startup CEO once told me, “this is a decision I simply cannot make”. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an an executive’s guide to strategic product management is waiting for you at www.ganotnoa.com/ebook Originally published at [link] on December 16, 2020.
the CPO of a well-known startup, described the following case to me: she gave the team a high-level instruction on a certain feature and she didn’t care how they would take it from there. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an Here are three things that you can do to master this.
Here’s what we learned about predicting retention by just jumping in with the product usage data. Tying analytics to business goals in a product-led startup. First things, first: Make sure you’re tracking the right things and tying them to the most important product outcomes.
Understand Your Core Values The product roadmap in a product company (as opposed to a services company, for example) sets the strategic direction of everything going on. In startups, it is actually the company roadmap. As such, it cannot be limited to include only the product-related parts like features and product KPIs.
While Mr. Yuhei Umeki, the founder of online media, THE STARTUP , earned 10,000 USD from own 30 USD magazine. Why “note” could create such revenue As Mr. Umeki pointed out, when we try to sell text contents, we needed the form of ebook or newsstand magazine.
As product leaders, we constantly struggle to balance between getting guidance from above and setting the direction ourselves. The CEO, or any of the founders if you are in a startup, seems to rightfully want to set the tone. Or do they? Here are 3 things you want to pay attention to. Everyone will benefit from it.
Challenge Upwards The CEO, startup founders, or your management chain up to the CEO, have authority over you. Our free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ” — an executive’s guide to strategic product management is waiting for you at www.infinify.com/ebook Originally published at [link] on February 15, 2024.
It’s Not About the Plumbing When we work with startups it’s usually a long-term relationship. We help them with their product strategy as well as building a strong product organization. That, of course, includes helping them hire the right people, and specifically the right product leader.
For example, I had a participant in one of my CPO Bootcamps, a VP Product in a mature startup, who did extensive research into their pricing model. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an When you make your recommendation, though, make sure it is one that your CEO can actually accept.
An Israeli startup, Sightful, uses a similar concept of screens displayed in space for another use case — productivity. Our free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ” — an executive’s guide to strategic product management is waiting for you at www.infinify.com/ebook Originally published at [link] on March 7, 2024.
Working in the startup nation, many of the product leaders I coach?—?either used to be engineers or even mathematicians before they shifted to product. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an The whole point in math is that there is a clear set of rules that defines the universe.
Photo by Pixabay I recently led a product-market fit workshop at a known company in the Israeli tech industry. It is a well-established company, a leader in its domain, but it still needs to deliver new products to the market so product-market fit is a very relevant topic.
If you ever worked in a B2B startup, you know that you are chasing opportunities. On a B2B startup, it can look something like this: people are willing to talk to you, and you get a few POCs. They don’t actually use the product, or not as frequently as you would like them to. That’s the first 2 A’s.
This point is so important that I want to emphasize it once more: you can educate the market to use your product if the potential customers have a strong unmet need that your product can answer. The #1 reason that startups fail is that they make something nobody wants.
That’s why although CEOs sometimes tell me that they want the vision to come from the product leader, I believe that what they usually mean is that they want the product leader to take their own larger vision and shape it into something that the entire company can work with to bring this vision to life. Make sure your paper works.
Photo by Steve Johnson from Pexels “Do I really need to start measuring everything that happens on the product?” the CPO of a startup that has a great product in the market asked me with a sigh. At the product level, I highly recommend starting with the startup metrics for pirates framework (AARRR).
the CPO of a well-known startup, described the following case to me: she gave the team high-level instructions on a certain feature and she didn’t care how they would take it from there. You want them to be calculated risks on one hand, but significant on the other, and various guidelines apply to different cases.
A few months ago, just before the COVID-19 outbreak in Israel, I reviewed dozens of startups and had to rate them based on predefined criteria, recommending some of them for the program and ruling out others. One of the questions the applicants needed to answer was about the impact their startup has already made. It sounds irrational?
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