Be Mindful of These Product Hacks

If you're new to product management or growth, you must be wondering how to make the most out of your tenure as a product manager or a growth hacker. In this blog post, I am trying to put together a few points on how to manage products better.

Tip #1: Always think from the perspective of the customer and the end-user

It's good to take feedback from the team members or the management and rely on your gut instincts to introduce a feature in a product, but unless you're seeking detailed feedback from a group of users who would be using your product or a similar product, then you are embarking on a disorienting journey. You may assume that a good feature attracts customers and draws a lot of attention towards it. Yes, you're right but what is a good feature according to you may not a useful feature for the end-user if there is little sync between your actual and target audience. Often we assume that our product would be used by a certain group of users without considering other alternatives. Always take a broad survey and understand the pain points of the user before getting to the feature suggestion task. Your product should solve a pressing problem, not the other way round where your product introduces a problem to the user first and then suggests a feature for them to use. Don't identify the product first and define the problem later. It can cost you dearly.

Tip #2: Always prioritize in the presence of every other team including marketing or sales

A common mistake made by product managers during the prioritization of features in the backlog is that they don't consult marketing, customer support, or sales before including that in the sprint. Whether or not your team is ready to support the feature is to determined by such teams. A customer support team may be overloaded with work such that they may not be able to accommodate more customer support tickets or requests for that particular feature that you're going to launch. Your marketing team may be running a campaign that is messaged contradictory to your feature. Or, worst case your sales team may not have the readiness to achieve output if they don't understand or approve of the feature that you want to include in your product. Remember, no one understands the client better than your sales team. Prioritization should be done in their presence. And, while you may be playing poker with the engineering and product teams, always consult other team members before you start to plan the poker.

Tip #3: Always remember to present options to your management in terms of features

Remember not to stick to just one feature religiously as the management may not be convinced of the need to introduce it. While seeking approval from the management on a design or a feature, you must present a few options with different objectives and outcomes if you're to impress someone who hasn't done the groundwork involved in surveying a market to achieve product-market fit. Look at a product from multiple angles and present options to your management that they may select the best possible option at the end of the discussion. Unless they know your options, it may be a one-sided affair dominated by your preconceived notions of a product idea. Don't be biased - remain open to possibilities.

Tip #4: While pricing, determine the value metric first

Always determine how much your customer is willing to pay for your product. Think empathetically of the customer before arriving at a pricing plan for your product. Don't just think in terms of customer acquisition cost and revenues/profits. Or, don't just copy your customer for a similar product to arrive at a more competitive price. Your product may be better suited to perform than your competitor's if you put yourself in the shoes of your customer. For example - a fine example is the pricing of SaaS products - would you go for a price-per-user model instead of a time-bound subscription model thus inviting competition from other users in a company who may want to try out another product to see what fits their requirements best? If you're solving an enterprise-level problem with your SaaS product, it is better to go for an annual revenue-based model so that your product can be used company-wide.

Tip #5: Always reward customers with gifts different from your product to collect feedback

Customers want rewards and not a discount on your product to spend 5 minutes on a survey. It opens up greater possibilities for a user to answer a survey and while they may not like a product so much as to renew it, you could still be getting their valuable feedback without upsetting them with a renewal discount plan upon taking a survey. Understand what your customer needs in terms of rewards and then plan accordingly.

Let me know in the comments how you like this article of mine. Do you have anything to suggest? Please feel free to write to me at anikbiswas@gmail.com.