Challenges of (Lean) Enterprise Product Management

Challenges of (Lean) Enterprise Product Management

Rich MironovCEO, Mironov Consulting

23 Aug 2016

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• Veteran product manager/exec/strategist• Organizing product organizations• Smokejumper VP Products• What will customers pay for?

• 6 startups, including as CEO/founder• “The Art of Product Management” • Founded Product Camp

About Rich Mironov

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Conversations, market information, priorities, requirements,

roadmaps, epics, user stories, backlogs, personas…

product bits

strategy, forecasts, commitments, roadmaps, competitive intelligence

budgets, staff,targets

Field input,Market feedback

Segmentation, messages, benefits/features, pricing,

qualification, demos…

Markets & CustomersDevelopment Marketin

g& Sales

Executives

ProductManagement

What Does a Product Manager Do?


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• Identify pain/need (e.g. user journey, interviews)• Describe/position a possible solution• Validated learning (mock-up, smoke test, MVP)• Iterate to improve concept• Early sign-ups (crowdfund, ask for the order)• Iterate toward revenue product

Consumer-Focused Lean Validation

• User is buyer• We can talk to lots of target users (with plenty left)• We can run A/B tests with product variants, sign-up

variants, pricing options, alternate messaging…• Identifying need >> building solution • User can commit ahead of shipment/value/use

Often-Unstated Assumptions


• Proposition A/B testability?• Buyer’s decision risk?• Purchase complexity?

• Buyer’s success metric?• Target audience size?• Product technical risk?


• Proposition A/B testability?• Buyer’s decision risk?• Purchase complexity?

• Buyer’s success metric?• Target audience size?• Product technical risk?

growth hacking

• High-powered (expensive) sales teams• Small numbers of customers (100’s – 1000’s)• Big ticket deals, long sales cycles, lumpy revenue

streams Subjective (political) win/loss attribution

Enterprise Sales


• Few prospects, some already in funnel• Heavily over-surveyed/over-marketed

personas (corporate CIOs)• Can’t afford A/B testing with serious

prospects• Sales wants to control every interaction• Real decision makers not obvious• Complex incumbent systems• Need to show hard ROI/efficacy

Enterprise Validation Challenges


Marketing/Sales Funnel

Target audience

Aware

Interested

Evaluating

Buyer

Repeat Buyer • Might take years with dozens of touches

• Message and product mostly stable throughout


• “Closing” meetings• Organized by Sales• Goal is to close• Anticipate/answer objections• Never raise new issues or ask about new needs

• Listening/learning meetings• Organized by Product Management• Open-ended questions• Dig for blockers, issues, ideas, new concerns• Trial-close unbuilt products, unproven solutions

Two Kinds of Customer Meetings


• “A legacy system is any system that works.”- Bob Epstein, Sybase co-founder

• Every enterprise is already (sort of) operating• Uniquely confusing assembly of old systems, mis-designed

processes, inherited policies, acquired divisions, accidents

• We have to displace exactly one piece

Detailed Systems and Process Contexts Are Essential

No corporation ever fully replaces any production system

Your product fits here


• Bottom-up, land-and-expand, departmental• Jira, Slack, product-level marketing, recruiting, productivity, travel, events• Strategy: start with workgroups

• All-or-Nothing Major Systems• ERP, finance, corporate HR, security architecture…• Evaluation process, RFP, references substitute for real trial

Can Customers Directly Try/Test Your Product?


• Mironov’s Theorem #2: whenever enterprise customers are really interested, Sales and Execs will convert “learning” into “early revenue commit” • “Beta,” “early access,” “preview,” “early adopter”

• MVP is whatever we can sell to someone sooner

Co-Opting “MVP”


Solo/SMB accounting vs. enterprise accounting:Validation approach, provability, mean-time-to-joy?

Collaborative Example #1


Single-family health insurance vs. F200 group policy:Validation approach, provability, mean-time-to-joy?



• Every enterprise security company has the same benefit headline• “We will stop x% more bad stuff than competitors”

• How do enterprise customers choose?



• How many of your users logged in this week? • Strong predictor of Trial Paid• Strong predictor of Paid Renewal• Onboarding success, feature usage, problem

identification• Finally, a non-vanity enterprise metric

Instrumenting (Cloud) Apps

Prioritizing Based on Use

25Des Draynor, Intercom: https://blog.intercom.io/prioritising-features-wholl-use-it-how-often/


1. Product/market fits into complex environment2. Dozens of in-depth interviews replace

hundreds of pre-sale A/B tests3. Intense pressure for one-off features4. Must understand buying process/players5. Market adoption happens slowly6. Usage metrics typically post-sale

Enterprise Lean Takeaways

CONTACT

Rich Mironov, CEOMironov Consulting233 Franklin St, Suite #308San Francisco, CA 94102

RichMironov

@RichMironov

[email protected]

+1-650-315-7394

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Challenges of (Lean) Enterprise Product Management