The Product Coalition

DECEMBER 11, 2023

We were trying to catch up and close the timeline gaps SARS has created for an important tech transfer project with a Chinese startup. You need to have a product strategy. As I said in the past, a product strategy has to make sense to you before you invest anyone else’s work in it. It always helps.

Leadership 78

Leadership User Testing Customer Experience Customer Feedback 78

The Product Coalition

DECEMBER 11, 2023

Strategy and Focus It almost doesn’t matter what drove a company to work with me originally, at some point we get to strategy. Strategy is so hard to craft and too often overlooked. This is especially true with product strategy, which is still an artifact that most CEOs haven’t seen a great one in action before.

Workshop 78

Workshop Customer Feedback Leadership User Testing 78

The Product Coalition

FEBRUARY 18, 2023

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.

Data Visualization 132

Data Visualization Customer Communications Feedback Software User Testing 132

The Product Coalition

AUGUST 16, 2020

SplitShire-London-Collection-210062 When I work with companies on sharpening the value proposition and refining the product strategy, one of our information sources for the process is their existing customers. Who they are, why they chose to work with the company, what value they are getting out of the product, etc.

User Testing 165

User Testing Customer Experience Customer Feedback Product Strategy 165

The Product Coalition

DECEMBER 19, 2021

The first product manager in a startup is a critical role with immense impact on the startup’s success?—?both Photo by Tolga Ulkan on Unsplash When I joined Twiggle as their first VP Product I was the thirteenth employee. Shortly after I started, the CEO surprised me by saying I should hire a product manager.

Product Management 164

Product Management Product Manager User Testing Weak Development Team 164

The Product Coalition

DECEMBER 31, 2023

I recently started working with a new client on product transformation. It’s a mature startup, with a number of products in the market, a leader in some categories and building up nicely in others. At some point I gave the CEO homework: to analyze all the recent deals of one of the products and try to find patterns.

User Testing 102

User Testing Workshop B2B Leadership 102

The Product Coalition

JULY 16, 2023

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).

Strategy 138

Strategy Product Management Product Manager Management 138

The Product Coalition

OCTOBER 26, 2020

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. It is much closer to the company strategy in how broad it is.

User Testing 126

User Testing Definition CTO Product Research 126

Product Innovation Educators

APRIL 17, 2023

Paul acquired the breadth of experience through his leadership roles at San Francisco Bay Area startups and high-growth companies. He helps rapidly scaling early-stage startups craft their Product Strategy and everything related to it. That’s the high-level strategy for the company.

Customer Experience 95

Customer Experience Leadership Startups Engineering 95

Product Management University

JUNE 5, 2023

Free eBook: Top-Down Customer Discovery – Uncovering THE BIG WHY Sample Portfolio Vision “ To help our customers grow revenue, market share, wallet share and customer retention. If you’re thinking parent-child relationship between portfolio vision and product vision, you’ve got it! “ Let’s give it the acid test.

Vision 130

Vision Product Research User Testing Customer Experience 130

The Product Coalition

JULY 30, 2023

A generic segmentation like “startups of 50–100 people” is not good enough for two reasons. For example, my strategic consulting clients usually need me when they realize they have a product strategy problem (even if they don’t call it that way). The first is that organizations don’t have problems, people do. It’s pivot time.

User Testing 107

User Testing Customer Experience Webinar Consulting 107

The Product Coalition

JUNE 9, 2023

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. It’s all about what you want to educate them on.

Education 110

Education Marketing Weak Development Team User Testing 110

The Product Coalition

MARCH 12, 2023

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.

User Testing 107

User Testing Product Research Consulting Leadership 107

The Product Coalition

SEPTEMBER 19, 2021

When you consider the ideal customer profile, you need to get yourself into your customers’ world and deeply understand what they need to go through before they are ready to buy your product. They take an opportunity to grow in their career, say as the CPO of a startup or as a Director in a larger company. 50 people or so?—?the

User Testing 139

User Testing Customer Experience Product Research Startups 139

The Product Coalition

MARCH 19, 2023

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. Are you up for the challenge?

User Testing 141

User Testing Framework B2B Document 141

The Product Coalition

JANUARY 13, 2021

When I first started teaching product management (at IDC’s Adelson School of Entrepreneurship ), I needed a way to break down strategic product thinking into distinct components that would help people understand and focus on one aspect each time. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an

User Testing 118

User Testing Definition Product Marketing Marketing 118

Bain Public

APRIL 17, 2020

Our virtual workshop series provides actionable strategies, tools, processes, and skills product leaders need to create innovations, adapt to market shifts, and anticipate what’s next. Targeted to startups, scale-ups or SMB organizations It takes place over 12 weeks, live via Google Meet. Pretty wow so far." Also good to know.

Workshop 52

Workshop Leadership Document Roadmap 52

The Product Coalition

JANUARY 4, 2021

Many startups fall into this category. Many blue-ocean startups start here. 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 30, 2020.

Education 142

Education Marketing Weak Development Team Advertising 142

The Product Coalition

JANUARY 8, 2023

A solid product strategy takes time to build. Here is the method I use for creating a product strategy that makes sense. 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.

Product Strategy 114

Product Strategy Strategy Research Software Product Research 114

The Product Coalition

JANUARY 24, 2021

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.

Analytic Tools 181

Analytic Tools Customer Experience B2C Enterprise 181

The Product Coalition

MARCH 24, 2018

Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash Defining of how people will get in touch with your product is something every startup should do very early on. This is essential, because you need to know how you’ll communicate with your potential customers and how your marketing and content strategy will look like.

Customer Communications 60

Customer Communications User Testing Education Engineering 60

The Product Coalition

JANUARY 16, 2022

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.

Roadmap 151

Roadmap Data Visualization Customer Experience User Testing 151

The Product Coalition

SEPTEMBER 11, 2022

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.

Customer Experience 112

Customer Experience Definition User Testing Engineering 112

The Product Coalition

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

Photo by Pedro Figueras from Pexels As the importance of product management for business success becomes clearer, many startups give one of the founders the product leadership role. It can be a full-blown CPO responsibility or a CTO who runs both product and technology. Don’t worry, you are still needed.

CTO Coach 97

CTO Coach Reporting Tools CTO Management 97

The Product Coalition

JULY 31, 2022

One of the hardest challenges of any product and any startup is of course reaching product-market fit. 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 July 27, 2022.

User Testing 121

User Testing Product Marketing Marketing Customer Experience 121

The Product Coalition

JANUARY 13, 2021

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. It’s not about your product, it’s about their unmet need.

Education 114

Education Marketing User Testing Weak Development Team 114

The Product Coalition

DECEMBER 11, 2023

My 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.ganotnoa.com/ebook Originally published at [link] on August 3, 2022. But understanding what the journey looks like should help you navigate smartly along the way.

User Testing 78

User Testing Product Marketing Marketing Customer Experience 78

The Product Coalition

NOVEMBER 8, 2020

Moreover, in smaller teams who need to move fast, and particularly in startups where there is still a large functional debt to close, allocating a considerable amount of the resources to technical debt prevents you from optimizing the work and delivering value fast enough. My free e-book “ Speed-Up the Journey to Product-Market Fit ”?—?an

Customer Experience 69

Customer Experience Engineering User Testing Definition 69

The Product Coalition

MARCH 10, 2024

It’s a legitimate strategy, that resonates well with Apple’s iPhone strategy. An Israeli startup, Sightful, uses a similar concept of screens displayed in space for another use case — productivity. When you think about your product strategy or a specific decision at hand, create a list of constraints that you live by.

Entertainment 120

Entertainment Technical Review Strategy Vision 120

The Product Coalition

SEPTEMBER 14, 2020

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.

Startups 100

Startups User Testing Agile Product Research 100

The Product Coalition

DECEMBER 5, 2021

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

Vision 141

Vision User Testing Startups Consulting 141

The Product Coalition

OCTOBER 18, 2020

A good product strategy helps you to acquire happy customers and retain them over time. Here is how product strategy helps you overcome them. Photo by Braden Collum on Unsplash Working on product strategy is an iterative process. would ask why it is important to continue refining even the finest details.

User Testing 109

User Testing B2C Customer Experience Weak Development Team 109

The Product Coalition

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

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).

Data Visualization 89

Data Visualization User Testing Dashboard Customer Experience 89

Mixpanel

JANUARY 11, 2021

We have three distinct products: the ad-supported video streaming platform, which is what we started with four years ago; a subscription version of the business with ad-free content; and exclusive original content. We also have a kid’s product, with ebooks, video games, audio stories, videos, movies, etc.

Data Visualization 98

Data Visualization User Testing Customer Experience Analytic Tools 98

ProductPlan

OCTOBER 26, 2021

In a vacuum, your resume or LinkedIn profile might leave people with more questions than answers: Why did you leave Microsoft for some startup that failed? To learn more about how IMPACT can help with your career and other dimensions of product management, download the free ebook today.

CTO Coach 86

CTO Coach User Testing Product Research Data Visualization 86

Gainsight

JUNE 22, 2022

Losing customers slows growth, so high-growth companies focus on ensuring customers get what they need from their products post sale. Increasingly, enterprises are competing with SaaS startups focusing on after-sale customer success. Don’t focus on the entire suite of features or products right away.

Enterprise 52

Enterprise Analytic Tools Data Visualization Onboarding KPIs 52

The Product Coalition

JANUARY 2, 2022

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.

Management 129

Management Management Research Software Product Research 129