Product Planning

One of the biggest problems for e-commerce, demonstrated by about 74% of users worldwide, is cart abandonment. It means three out of every four shoppers in your online store walk away AFTER they’ve put their items in the cart. If you’ve ever tried to deal with cart abandonment, you might find our story interesting — we brought back 11% of Read more »

Examples of platforms are all around us. Businesses that have been successful at building platforms have disrupted traditional companies and scaled quickly. AirBNB, Amazon, Salesforce, and Uber are just some examples of platforms that have become massively successful in recent years. You’ll find platforms across many industries, from transportation to book publishing. For a product Read more »

Someone I know is about to kick off a big project with separate companies managing the design and development. I’m sorry to say I’ve seen this arrangement fail far more than I’ve seen it succeed because I’ve been the one called in to fix it. Design agencies and engineering teams are filled with talented and Read more »

Let’s establish this right upfront: nothing beats a well-managed full-time in-house team of local developers. So why would you want to outsource anything? Doesn’t outsourcing come with a lot of headaches just for a bit of saving? As with anything complex, it depends. Outsourcing: Why and When? Are there enough skilled developers at your location? Read more »

How do we all get to that point in product where we have caveats against multiple items on the roadmap—and more importantly what do we do to mitigate it?  Read more »

Here’s a scenario nearly everyone finds themselves in at some point in this line of work: You’re psyched about a new product or feature in the works. You’ve got requirements, design vision, and even a development timeline. You’ve got feedback from potential buyers and they love it. You’re ready to roll, and then you’re asked, Read more »

Fourteen billion years ago the universe was immensely hot, dense plasma. Then, as the universe expanded after the Big Bang, the gases within it cooled. When these gases reached a temperature of around 2,700°C (billions of years before galaxies existed) protons and electrons were able to combine into hydrogen atoms, releasing energy in all directions Read more »

There’s a lot of variation in how companies document product requirements. Some are moving away from detailed, written product requirements documents (PRDs), while others are using shorter write-ups, user stories, or jobs-to-be-done formats. Some product teams are moving away from written PRDs to visual artifacts like mockups and prototypes. It’s a change in approach that’s driven by demands for more agility Read more »

Every product comes with a tumultuous ‘origin story’. Ours is still unfolding, but I’ve been reflecting on what building a product business within a service agency has brought to the tale. We decided, about 18 months ago, that our consultancy business model, though growing and successful, could benefit from diversification — specifically, from creating something with tangible intellectual property. Six Read more »

  I love asking people this question. It is quite a shocker that most people can’t really answer it. Everyone talks and writes about the importance of customer development, but companies still don’t spend enough time really talking to their customers. It’s a bit like data: you won’t find a single founder who doesn’t say: Read more »