Product Management @ Startups

Neta HaibyCTO, Microsoft Ventures Accelerators

About Me

• Microsoft Ventures Accelerator

• 10+ years in Product Management both in startups and cooperates

• BSc and MBA from the Technion, with honors

• 3 Patents

• Various product management roles from new ideas to definition and release for B2B and B2C

Startup Grads % Funded

Avg. Funding

48 85%

$1.2M 100%

Number of mentors and experts

124 2

MV Accelerator

Agenda

•Who is the product Manager ?

•MVP

•Lean product management

Who is the Product Manager ?

Evan Spiegel Founder and CEOBobby Murphy Co-founder

Shahar Waiser - Founder & CEORoi More - Founder

Aaron Levie – CEO

Dylan Smith – CFO

Sam Ghods - Services Architect

Jeff Queisser - Chief Systems

Architect

Martin Lorentzon – Co Founder Daniel Ek - CEO & Co-Founder

CEO and CTO roles

What a CEO Does

•Sets the overall vision and strategy of the company and communicates it to all stakeholders

•Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent

•Makes sure there is always enough cash in the bank

What A CTO Does

•Sets the overall vision and strategy of the product and development

•Brings a vision to reality

•Bridge between Sales\Marketing & Technology

•Product Development

•Managing people

So who is the product manager ?

Founders will inevitably have to learn product

management but they usually don't know that.

Product Manager @ startups

•Biggest PM risk Making something NO one wants

•Not launching is Painful, Not Learning is Fatal

•Put something in the users hands and get feedback ASAP

•Know your customers, speak with them, understand their problem and need

•Does “less” is okay – flaky, ugly, confusing is not

MVP – Minimal Viable Product

• MVP = learning vehicle. It allows you to test an idea by exposing an early version of your product to the target users and customers, to collect the relevant data, and to learn form it. It’s the smallest possible feature set that addresses the user needs, creates the desired user experience, and can hence be marketed and sold successfully.

DropBox MVP example

Customers MVP feedback

Lean Product Management

Source: pichler consulting

Problem Validation - PM is Part Art Part Science

• Who is the customer ?

• Know your customer and walk in his/her shoes

• Customer Development

• What do we need to do ?

• Competitive landscape, market trends, technology roadmap, areas of innovation

• Why should we do this ?

• Key customer value prop; key business value prop

• When should we do this ?

• Understand the short and long term timeline

• Where is our market?

• US, Europe, Israel etc. . . .

Problem Validation is done by direct customer observation, problem interviews, and competitor analysis and tracked in the business canvas.

The Business Model Canvas

KnowMail business Model Canvas

Solution Validation

•Once the PM and team have shown that there is a problem that’s worthwhile addressing, the focus changes to validating the solution and developing the actual product

•Desired User Experience

•Product Functionality

•How the product should be built

The Product Canvas

Product Management questions

•Key questions for Problem Validation

•What problem does the product solve ?

•Who are the customers and users ?

•What business benefits do you bring?

•Key questions for Product Validation

•What is the right user experience ?

•What functionality should the product provide ?

•How should the product be built ?

•What should the MVP include ?

Key Takeaways

• Every product needs a product manager

•Problem Validation

“Should this product be built?"

•Product Validation

User Experience

MVP

Thanks !Neta Haiby – netahw@Microsoft.com