Building Great Products - 4 Traits That Matter!

In my previous blog I had written about the following 5-foundational and essential themes focused on customer centricity to building a winning product.

·       Identify key customer outcomes and focus on maximizing value creation around those outcomes

·       Gain a better understanding of the consumption model.

·       Establish a clear balance between acquisition and adoption requirements.

·       Do not copy competitor’s customer acquisition strategy.

This blog is more about the core tenets essential to be a successful product leader. Product leaders with these tenets not only deliver great products but also energize their teams to achieve goals often seem unachievable in the beginning.

·       Be objective and flexible

Taking a step back, and not letting confirmed biases drive the decision making are critical. Particularly, when you are launching a new product and validating product-market fit in a crowded market, objectivity is super critical.  One win or loss is not good enough a sample size for deciding overall product direction. Reflect on what customers and product metrics are telling. Use this information to evaluate the overall strategy vs shifting gear with each sample.

 

The key is to be objective and at the same time be flexible. Not be driven by a set pattern is an important characteristic of a successful product leader. The product leaders must not surrender the game leaving any unavailable card unplayed. It’s important to keep the opportunity open to change your mind based on evidence.

 

·       Don’t get driven by journalism; rely on real-time market data that is detailed and reliable

Consistent with being objective and flexible, it’s the responsibility of the product leader to avoid product decisions which are triggered by ‘journalism’.  Often times, someone in the leadership team plays an analyst and brings up sensational items with an extreme point-of-view suggesting that either you are winning and you are the ultimate conqueror or it’s dooms day.  Watch out for such journalism shaping your product strategies and therefore execution priorities. These individuals often keep piling up information without really accomplishing anything meaningful.

Inculcate the culture and establish the processes which allow sharing of market data, in real-time, to make product decisions.  This also means that this data is analyzed in detail against a set of performance metrics to make appropriate decisions. This is critical as leaders need to be in the flow of information to be able to maintain a sense of urgency and be able to focus on what matters most.

 

·       Be a risk taker and innovative yet patient and calculating

This is the most difficult blend of science and art.  While you need to evaluate your product strategy, market fit, and the Go-To -Market plans on an ongoing basis, it’s also important that your pivot or persevere decisions are data driven and not influenced by simply copying the competition resulting into complete abandonment of your own strategy and differentiators. This could create a chaos that you cannot thrive on. In a rapidly changing market scenarios, you do have to reallocate resources to promising opportunities, but do that based on clearly defined metrics and communicate your choices to ensure agility through shared vision. In the process, make sure that there is a clear understanding of the core markets that you need to protect.

 

Being patient, assessing and recalibrating your strategy based on market evidence are essential elements of successfully managing innovation and risk in order to deliver a winning product.

·       Transparency and integrity

Building credibility by being consistent and clear when speaking to others is of utmost importance. Actions must mirror what you say. Nothing frustrates the team more than receiving mixed messages. Sense of direction is crucial at all times and more so during the times of change.

Here is a checklist in the form of probing questions you may want to start with:

·       Even when NPS (Net Promoter Score) is high, are your customers loyal to your product, or are they captive until they find a better alternative?

·       What outcomes customers care for, and how we are delivering on those outcomes? Measuring customer centric outcomes allows an objective analysis of the value created by the product.

·       Have you looked at alternate business models? Is the existing business model durable and scalable?

·       What are the alternate options available to your customers which could diminish the value delivered by your product?

·       Are you dealing with the consumption gap? In other words, do your products have more features than most of your customers value?