1. First leverage your strengths!
For those with:
- Engineering or Design skills, build a new product
- Business background, leverage consulting, marketing or sales skills.
2. Demonstrate execution skills.
Learn to address key skills gaps.
- PMs and entrepreneurs looking for advice on:
How to start from scratch when building a 0 to 1 marketplace product?
"How can we walk away from requirements that we know to be true to pursue something that we think will help?" It turns out that is exactly what product strategy is all about - figuring out the right product is the innovator`s job, not the customer`s job."
Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things.
Focus on the hardest customer first
Think not just product, but building customer experience
Execution matters for product too!
For example, the PM has great ideas but to create a market product, but there are no buyers. There are uninterested sellers. What are you doing? To solve the problem of cold start, it is necessary to create a small network of buyers and sellers interacting with each other in this market.
Why?
Somebody has probably already solved a problem for the easier side
Users with an unsolved problem can create lots of value for you
Helps you create a small network
How to convince them?
Financial incentive – 0 fees for sellers – Vinted
Set up a tool to create network effects
Clear value proposition – product delivers promise and execution
Sub-segment side of the marketplace that is tough to attract
Research these customers
Product needs to deliver strapline promise
Fairer prices and zero hassle
Built in mechanisms to support value proposition
Built systems of buyers and sellers to talk to each other e.g.
Amazon reviews is a great example
Execute on customer experience
Details matter – e.g. Bloom and Wild
Narrow down category of products
Friction to protect customer experience
Discovery
Virtual opportunity maps of customer issues
Standardised communication from research to inform company
Ran smoke screen tests before building
What to build immediately Process
Longer term commitments were more like discovery roadmaps
Certainty of what to build for 1 month
Differentiation and Iteration
Prioritization
Launched basic features first
Iterated to target key problems for sellers
Focused on early successes and improvements after we identified key differentiators
Goal setting of squads and metrics
Initially aligned squads to 2 key North star metrics
Priorities shifted to growing buyers and sellers and aligning squads accordingly
Balancing roadmap
Within each squad, key recurring prioritization questions on:
Improving customer experience
Increasing top line growth and network effects
Building mechanisms for buyers and sellers to communicate
Alignment across squads
Focus on the hardest customer first
Think not just product, but building customer experience
Execution matters for product too!
These are the things that can help you build a product roadmap and launch your business product from 0 to 1.
Sadaf Zahid, Typeform Group PM