Product Thinking and Pre-Launch, Launch, Post-Launch and Success Metrics

1. Product Thinking

Product thinking is a problem-solving methodology for developing valuable solutions for user problems. The skill of knowing what makes a product useful by people. It involves understanding the needs and motivations of users, identifying opportunities to create value, and continually iterating and refining the product to meet the evolving needs and expectations of the target audience.

2. Pre-launch

“Pre-launch” refers to the preparatory and promotional activities undertaken before the official release of a product or service in the market. During this phase in the product domain, efforts are made to introduce the product to the target audience, gather feedback, and make final adjustments before the official launch. Activities may include marketing and promotional campaigns, beta testing, collecting user feedback, offering pre-orders or early registrations, creating relevant content, and forming strategic partnerships.

Product Vision

Vision:

Vision is a living mental image that expresses imaginative and guided views about future goals. A visionary represents an individual who plans or thinks about the future with imagination and wisdom. In the business world, a visionary is someone who envisions a possible future and then works to bring that future into reality.

There are two main types of visions:

• Global Vision: How you envision the world in the distant future.
• Company or Product Vision: How your company/product will look or what it will do in the future.

A company vision is something you define as a CEO or founder, while a product vision is defined as a product manager. To be a real visionary, you must have strong insights, a great imagination, an understanding of your market, and, importantly, listen to users.

Product Strategy

Strategy

Strategy is the process of systematically using resources and directing actions to achieve specific goals, often planned against a competitor. Michael Porter’s three general competitive strategies are:

1. Cost Leadership: Providing a product cheaper than everyone in your industry.
2. Differentiation: Offering a unique experience or feature set.
3. Focus: Concentrating on a narrow market and ignoring the rest.

Cost Leadership:

• Providing a product cheaper than everyone else in your industry.
• Example: Suppose we are a company producing bicycles and found a way to reduce production costs. There are two ways to use the cost leadership strategy. First, we can continue to sell bicycles at the market price, increasing profits. Second, we can sell below market price, still making a profit, and increase market share. In both scenarios, our product would be offered at a lower cost than everyone else in the industry.

Differentiation:

• Offering a unique experience or feature set.
• Example: Imagine we are a business with a video conferencing application. In a market with several competitors having similar features — making calls, recording calls, high-quality encryption — our company noticed that call quality was the most significant concern for users. So, we added features reducing both packet loss and background noise in calls. This unique feature set would differentiate us from the competition and attract more customers. To use this strategy, carefully listening to or predicting customer needs and addressing those needs not yet met by others is crucial.

Focus:

• Concentrating on a narrow market while the first two focus on broad markets.
• Example: As a company manufacturing cars, we decided to adopt a focus strategy and concentrate on a specific segment of the market. Instead of competing in the broad car market, we chose to produce only sports cars. Focusing on high speed, agility, and unique design for our sports cars, we targeted sports car enthusiasts. Additionally, to support our focus strategy, we intensified our R&D efforts in this area and consistently worked on improving sports car technologies. This way, we aim to achieve a leading position in the sports car segment.

Within the focus strategy, there are two subcategories: cost and differentiation. You can focus on a narrow market and either offer your product at a lower cost or differentiate it.

Vision vs. Strategy:

Having a vision requires the ability to envision a better future. Having a strategy requires the ability to determine the steps needed to reach a goal.

Value Proposition

A value proposition is basically a clear message that tells customers what benefits they can get from using a company’s product or service. It’s like saying, “Hey, here’s why you should choose us over others!” For example, let’s say there’s a new smartphone company. Their value proposition might be: “Our smartphones have longer battery life and better camera quality than other brands, so you can stay connected and capture your memories without worrying about running out of battery or getting blurry photos.” This statement tells customers why they should pick this brand — because it offers something special that others don’t.

Product-Market Fit

Product-market fit is basically about how well a product fits with what a specific group of people want. Imagine you’ve made a new type of smartphone. If lots of people who want a smartphone like yours buy it and are happy with it, you’ve got good product-market fit. But if people don’t really like it or aren’t interested, then you need to change something to make it fit better with what they want. For instance, if you find out that your smartphone’s camera isn’t good enough for the market you’re targeting, you might need to improve the camera quality to better meet their needs. Having a strong product-market fit is super important because it means your product is meeting the needs of the people who want it, which helps your business succeed.

Product Roadmap

Every company creates roadmaps differently, and while roadmaps are generally not set in stone, having a general guide is useful. So why do companies create roadmaps?

Reasons for Creating a Roadmap and Alternatives

1. Managers and Investors Prefer Quarter-Based Roadmaps: Investors and managers often like to see quarter-based roadmaps that show a company’s future plans and goals. These roadmaps clearly indicate what a company plans to achieve in each quarter.
2. You May Have a Real Deadline: In some cases, a project may have a real deadline, and you can create plans by drawing a roadmap.

Prioritizing by Importance

Prioritizing projects by importance involves organizing projects based on priorities such as “Near Term,” “Mid-Term,” and “Long Term.” This method keeps everyone aligned but doesn’t impose strict deadlines.

Methods for Prioritization

1. Assumption testing: Prioritize based on assumptions. Test the riskiest assumptions first. Evaluate your assumptions on a scale from 1 to 10. Rank them from least risky to riskiest. Assign a score based on risk and importance. Add these two values to prioritize.
2. BUC method: Named after Business benefits, User benefits, and Cost, this method can be translated into business benefits, user benefits, and cost. Score the factors: Evaluate each factor on a scale of 1 to 10. For example, you might score business benefits as 8, user benefits as 9, and cost as 5. Sum the benefit scores: Add up the scores for business and user benefits (e.g., 8 + 9 = 17). Subtract the cost: Subtract the cost from this total (e.g., 17–5 = 12). Prioritize based on the resulting score. A higher score indicates higher priority.
3. MoSCoW method: Stands for “must-have,” “should-have,” “could-have,” and “won’t-have (this time).” This method is useful for organizations that need to prioritize product features. It can be used in different situations and helps resolve conflicts among stakeholders. Start with “Must-have” first.

Product Pitch

A product pitch is like a sales talk that tries to convince someone to buy or invest in a product or service. Let’s say you’ve created a new type of smartwatch. Your product pitch might involve explaining what makes your smartwatch special, like its health tracking features or long battery life. You’d also talk about how it can benefit the person you’re pitching to, like helping them stay fit or organized. You might even show them a demo of how the smartwatch works.

The whole point of a product pitch is to get the person you’re talking to interested enough to try out your product, invest in it, or support it in some way.

3. Launch

Launch, or the process of introducing a new product or service to the market, is a critical phase in any business venture. It encompasses a series of strategic activities aimed at creating awareness, generating interest, and ultimately driving demand among potential customers. In this dynamic landscape of product introduction, three key components play pivotal roles: Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Product Launch, and Press Release. Each serves as a cornerstone in the journey from concept to consumer engagement, facilitating iterative development, strategic communication, and impactful market entry. Let’s delve into each aspect to understand its significance and contribution to a successful launch strategy.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP):

The term MVP, short for “Minimum Viable Product,” was first introduced in “The Lean Startup” book. MVP is about developing the essential features of a product to launch it early, gather feedback, and shape the product iteratively. The aim is to create a product that evolves with user feedback, focusing on minimal features that fulfill the product’s value proposition.

WhatsApp started as a simple messaging app allowing users to send and receive text messages. It quickly gained popularity by meeting the basic communication needs with its minimalist interface. Over time, it iteratively added features like voice calls, video calls, file sharing, and group chats based on user feedback, evolving into a globally-used messaging platform with billions of users.

Product Launch

Product launch is the introduction of a new product or service to the market. It includes various marketing efforts to create interest and demand among potential customers. Activities like product demos, press releases, ads, social media campaigns, and events are common in a product launch. A successful launch can greatly influence the product’s and company’s overall success.

Press Release

A press release is a formal announcement sent to the media to share something noteworthy. In the digital product realm, it’s often used to announce launches like new apps, software updates, or online services. These releases contain details about the product, its benefits, and background info. They aim to create excitement and interest, often sent to tech journalists, bloggers, and influencers to gain coverage and drive traffic to the product’s website or landing page.

4. Post-Launch

Post-launch is a crucial phase in the lifecycle of any product or service. Once a product has been introduced to the market, it enters a phase of continuous assessment, adaptation, and improvement. This phase encompasses various strategic initiatives aimed at maximizing the product’s success and ensuring its continued relevance in the market landscape.

Product Usage Analytics

Product usage analytics involves collecting, analyzing, and reporting data about how customers use a product. This includes info like how often they use it, which features they use, and how much time they spend on it. Product managers and developers use this data to make the product better, find areas to grow, and understand what customers want. Analytics can be gathered using software tools, surveys, and other methods.

Customer Retention

Customer retention is all about keeping customers coming back to your business. It’s a crucial measure of success because it’s usually cheaper to keep an existing customer than to find a new one. Businesses can improve retention by offering great products or services, providing top-notch customer service, having loyalty programs, and always finding ways to make the customer experience better. By focusing on retention, businesses can build strong, long-lasting relationships with their customers, leading to more loyalty over time.

Product Pivot

Product pivot is when a product’s focus or direction changes a lot, usually because of market demand or business changes. This might mean targeting a different customer group, changing the business model, features, or how the product is positioned. Pivots can help companies aim their product at a new, possibly more profitable market or audience. They can also happen in response to customer feedback or market changes. The main aim of a product pivot is to make the product more likely to succeed in the market.

Instagram

Instagram is the most widely used photo app for iPhone, but many don’t know its origins. Instagram began as Burbn, a check-in app that included gaming elements from Mafia Wars, and a photo element as well. The creators worried Burbn had too much clutter and potential actions, and would never gain traction. So they took a risk and stripped all the features but one: photos. They rebuilt a version of the app that focused solely on photography — it was clean and simple, and clearly it paid off.

PayPal

PayPal has always focused on payments, but it has gone through many permutations. It was developed by a company called Confinity in 1999 to allow people to “beam” payments from their PDAs (handheld digital computers, such as the Palm Pilot, an early incarnation of the smartphone). After merging with a financial services company called X.com, PayPal became the preferred online payment system for eBay sellers, which propelled its name into payment processing fame.

For more about Pivot examples

5. Metrics

What Are Metrics, and Why Are They Used?

A metric is a measurement or indicator used to quantify, monitor, or evaluate the performance of a process or system. Metrics are employed to measure, improve, and achieve goals related to your product.

Metrics differ from Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in that KPIs are customized, strategically important metrics used to measure and track an organization’s primary objectives. Metrics, on the other hand, are more general measurement tools that may not necessarily be tied to specific strategic goals. Every KPI is a metric, but not every metric is a KPI.

For more about metrics, visit my other article about Product Strategy 101

Business Metrics

Business metrics are numbers that show how well a company is doing. These numbers can be about money, like how much profit the company makes, or they can be about other things, like how happy customers are or how satisfied employees feel. Companies use these metrics to set goals, see how well they’re doing, and make decisions based on data to make things better and reach their goals.

Design Metrics

Design metrics are like rulers for measuring how good a design is. They help designers see how well things like user experience, how easy something is to use, how it looks, and how it works are doing. Designers and developers use these metrics to find where they can make things better and see how their work improves over time. They collect this data in different ways, like testing with real users, using analytics, or asking people questions. These metrics are important tools for making sure a product or service meets what users need and want.