Strategies for Product Development in Tech Startups

I kicked off a product advisory engagement last week w/ the technical co-founder of an early stage YC-backed startup. He's hungry to become a better product leader (he's an A+ engineer). Context: I'm coaching him around customer discovery + product validation, including internal communication loops to ensure learnings & insights from customers are incorporated into his team's product development process. He framed the initial problems and I tried a question-based approach. He stopped me. "I'd like you to tell me what to do specifically as if I was a junior PM at my own startup." Here are a few points I shared: 1) Intimately know your customer. His company has a few early customers so I told him he needs to become an expert on every user and decision maker. What are their goals in life, pain points in their daily workflow, etc. I should be able to quiz you about your customers and you know the answer every time. 2) Learn where deals die. Product leaders are first & foremost business leaders. Understand the GTM + revenue generating motion of the business, including how customers find you and convert from leads to paying customers. Blockers to closing deals are a P0. You should always understand the deal pipeline. 3) Fall in love w/ problems, not solutions. Engineers tend to feel a sense of pride in the elegance of the solution. However, early stage solutions are usually wrong and need iteration. The *problem* is what has longevity, not the solution. Falling in love with a problem will give you the energy and excitement to experiment w/ different solutions as you seek product market fit. 4) Be 10x better on a key dimension the customer cares about. You have a small team and need to focus on the biggest impact. I believe the right place to focus for a new product is in being 10x better along a key dimension your customer cares about. Bite off a part of their workflow that sucks and make it fun, seamless, or gone. Incrementality = death. 5) Delighting customers is the best way to grow. Your customers will know people just like them. The best way to get word-of-mouth (WoM) going is by blowing them away. WoM is free marketing that brings highly qualified prospects to your doorstep with their wallets out. Make your first customers your biggest champions. 6) Bring your team along for the ride. Don't wait to have a fully fleshed out solution in your head. Instead, regularly share your latest thinking about the business strategy, milestones, biggest bottlenecks for growth, and problems you think the business should be focused on. This ensures everyone on the team is living and breathing the same headspace as the founders. I've never seen a founder ask for this advice this directly but I absolutely loved it because it showed humility and a true growth mindset. Anything else you'd advise a founder through the lens of "what's the basic advice you'd give me as a junior PM at my own startup?" #startupadvice #productmanagement #ycombinator

Most companies suck at launching products. They’re like Alice in Wonderland — chasing shiny objects and getting lost along the way. Here’s the 11-step process we perfected after 25 years of product launches (in a collaboration with Jason Oakley): 1. Competitive Research The key to great strategy is to look externally. Take notes on competitor's features and how they grow. Build a database so you can counter-position appropriately. 2. Segmentation A launch aimed at “everyone” will miss everyone. Instead, build a laser-focused Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Follow this chain of thought: What are they craving? → What frustrates them daily? → What job are they trying to accomplish? 3. Pricing & Packaging Even the smallest feature can have a ripple effect on your pricing and packaging. Don’t wait until launch week to figure this out. Before launching, assess things like: Will this be a paid feature or free? Who will get access? What’s the plan for feature gating? 4. Positioning Now it’s time to craft a message that resonates. Speak to their deeper desires, not just their immediate problems. Communicate the outcome your product delivers and why you’re different from the rest. 5. Assemble Your Launch Team You can’t do it alone, and you shouldn’t. A successful launch involves stakeholders across the company. Use the RACI framework to assign clear roles. 6. Clear Objectives Too many teams dive into a launch without defined goals. And that’s why they miss the mark. Set clear objectives and key results. 7. Distribution Channels Many teams fall into the trap of trying to be everywhere; LinkedIn, email, ads, you name it. Reality check: Most startups only have 1-2 effective distribution channels. Find yours and double down on it. 8. Launch Milestones Planning your entire launch around individual tasks will overwhelm you. Instead, focus on major milestones and build a work-back plan. Some key milestones to include: Early access launch → Customer launch → Kickoff meeting. 9. Bill of Materials Your Bill of Materials is the content engine of your launch. Focus on: → Writing the message they want to hear → Designing visuals that captivate and appeal to them → Creating email sequences tailored to every user flow 10. Sales & Customer Success Teams Too many launches fail because these teams are looped in at the last minute. Enable them early with a messaging deck, internal FAQs, and demo materials... And they’ll become powerful advocates for your product. 11. Launch Day Make sure everything is launched smoothly and on time. If you achieve early wins, be the first to celebrate them and rally the team. And don’t forget to keep pushing the momentum forward. There's much more in the deep dive: https://lnkd.in/eB7s6umA If you don't plan your launches, even the best products will fail.

I’ve seen countless founders waste $75k-150k on an MVP, by making the same mistake. I’ve built and scaled products for the last 2 decades, I’ve noticed a trend: Most product startup owners get excited and rush into launching MVP before laying the groundwork. This leads to unnecessary cash burn and failed products. But if founders hold off until they get the basics right, they can save money and build sustainable products. Here’s how: ▶ 1. Get inside your customers' heads - Dive deep into understanding your target audience. - Conduct thorough market research and user interviews. - Validate your problem statement to avoid building on guesswork. ▶ 2. Craft a crystal clear value proposition - Define the core value your product brings to the table. - Identify how it solves specific pain points better than anyone else. - Figure out why and how your MVP will resonate with users from the get-go. ▶ 3. Measure what matters - Pinpoint key success metrics for your MVP. - Know what to track - user engagement, feature usage, or conversion rates. - Gather meaningful data from the start to set the stage for future improvements. ▶ 4. Decide fast, act faster - Don't procrastinate if you are unsure about what to build. - Use the validation phase to make smart, informed decisions. - Be clear - if your solution doesn’t look promising, pivot without hesitation. By following these steps, you can ensure that you build a satisfactory MVP that sets the right path for your product. Have you ever built an MVP that failed? Do share your insights. #mvp #productbuilding #entrepreneurship

Deep Dive #8 for “Some of My Learnings” Learning #8: Step 1: Prove product/market fit. Step 2: Create a repeatable opportunity creation motion. Step 3: Only after successfully completing Step 1 & Step 2, invest in scale. Prematurely investing in scale is the same as lighting money on fire. This formula applies to both startups and large companies. When you build a product from scratch, or as they say from Zero to One, there are one of two types of products you build. It’s either a product for an established market with established competitors or a product in a new category. Let’s start with established products and I can then highlight the extra work that needs to be done for a category creating product. So goal #1 that must be accomplished when you build a product from the ground-up is to get validation from the market that in fact the product you built solves an important problem, customers are willing to pay for it and what you deliver works as advertised and solves a real problem for a focused set of customers. The first 25 to 50 customers have to be acquired in very non-scalable ways. You must do things initially that don’t scale, so that you can eventually scale. The product leader in a big company or a CEO in a startup have to be intimately involved in selling and delivering the first few deals. Now, a V1 product, no matter how good, isn’t going to meet all the requirements of every customer segment or industry vertical. So it is crucial to understand exactly which customers will most benefit from the product and define that ideal customer profile (ICP). Most importantly, understand and communicate why you are different from incumbents. Not by 10% but by 10x. Once this is defined, you have to be maniacally focus on pursuing opportunities for ONLY that ICP. The reason for this is that you want to have repeatability in the sales model and not spend a whole lot of time trying to win deals where your probability of winning those deals is extremely low. The thing you want to avoid at all costs is a “slow no”. Now, as you keep enhancing the product, you can keep expanding your ICP. But staying focused on the initial ICP is great not just for sales but also adoption. So… Goal #1 is to validate an ideal customer for whom your product works as advertised. Goal #2 is to make sure that you build a repeatable opportunity creation motion with a defined ICP. Goal #3 once you succeed at #1 & #2, then and only then should you focus on scale. The mistake that many make is to not focus and try and chase and win all different types of use cases all at once, which have little repeatability amongst themselves. This lack of focus leads to low win rates and loss of confidence in the field. If you have to launch a new product category, it is even harder because of the investment needed to create a new category. So identify a large market but focus on serving a very small subset of that market to get started with in the early days.

2 years of sleepless nights turned into this… Started a team of two, and now we’re at over 50! Turned $19M in seed funding into a top AI platform. Trusted by top companies like Notion, Miro, & Honeybook. Here are 8 things we did to build a high-level tech product: 𝟭. 𝗡𝗼-𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 (if you’re not targeting developers) Our goal was to remove the barriers as much as we could. Create a plug-and-play solution with low to no R&D involvement. 𝟮. 𝗡𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗷𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗱 Have minimum professional services on your end. To scale fast, don’t have a massive organization. This will help you maintain high gross margins. 𝟯. 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Directly influence an outcome– something tangible, measurable. Build your product so that it’s simple to measure its impact on ROI. 𝟰. 𝗘𝗮𝘀𝘆 𝗯𝘂𝘆-𝗶𝗻 Is your product going to be in an existing P&L line or a new line? Each use case means you need a different focus in GTM. 𝟱. 𝗧𝗔𝗠 Make sure the market is big enough, preferably growing. Consider serving multiple verticals and use cases. 𝟲. 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗱 & 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗱 Combine a usage-based model (benefit from their organic growth) with multiple products that you can sell directly to your clients (upsell) or to different clients in the same company (cross-sell). 𝟳. 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗳-𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 You must be able to sell remotely in order to scale. So build your product from the get-go with self-serve. 𝟴. 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 If your startup is related to the internet… Network effect is more important than IP. There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy. But this is what worked for us. #growth #strategy #artificialintelligence #digitalmarketing #VBB