Product Management Weekly - Issue #5
Welcome to the another edition of the Product Weekly newsletter. This week’s write-up focuses on the results from a SaaS onboarding research, freemium model(s), cognitive biases, GTMs, jtbd and more
The 2020 State of SaaS Product On-boarding
Article: link
tl;dr;
Userpilot writes about their research on SaaS product on-boarding. This is an excellent read if you are looking into building an on-boarding funnel and want to find best practices and things to avoid.
Key highlights:
73% of B2C brands have a freemium offering
86% of B2B brands offer a free trial instead of freemium
40% of SaaS products didn’t have a welcome screen for their new users.
Only 16% of SaaS products used video messaging in their app
29% of SaaS products used a product tour to show us around
37% of B2B SaaS products had a frictionless sign-up
38% SaaS products of had 3-4 fields on the sign-up form
Only 56% of SaaS products had a checklist as part of on-boarding
Only 35% of tools asked for goals, and used that info for greater personalization
Only 17% of SaaS products celebrated their users’ milestones and achievements
Customer-centric growth: 7 Types of Freemium Models
Article: link
tl;dr;
Continuing on the line of B2B SaaS products, next up is an article from Sixteenventures where they present the 7 types of freemium models present in the market today.
Models include:
Traditional/Classical Freemium
Land & Expand
Unlimited “Free Trial”
Freeware 2.0
Alternative Product Strategy
Ecosystem
Network Effect
Where most companies go wrong is when they confuse “Free Trials” with “Freemium.” If you think Freemium is just an extended “try before you buy”… you’re in for a serious rude awakening.
Product Execution versus Discovery
Article: link
tl;dr;
Product discovery focussed article stressing on the need to asses risks early on, and to focus on the right things based on given product strategy.
Checkout the blog for details.
Execution focused new products exist where there are clear competitors and a fairly well-established market need. Discovery focused new products exist where the potential customers aren’t sure what solutions are available.
The Adjacent User Theory
Article: link
tl;dr;
Great article on unlocking the product potential by building for the adjacent user by Bangaly Kaba (EIR @ Reforge, Former VP Growth @ Instacart, Instagram)
There are a set of users who show intent for your product but are not quite able to get over the hump. Those are your Adjacent Users. Solving for the Adjacent User through growth and scaling work helps your product realize its true product-market fit potential.
Fourteen Cognitive Biases Common to Product Owners
Article: link
tl;dr;
During the course of user research and developing the problem statement, often times our decision making gets affected with different biases. This article from Carlton Nettleton captures common biases which we as PM’s should be aware of:
Anchoring
Bandwagon effect
Bizarreness effect
Confirmation bias
Curse of knowledge
Experimenter’s bias
Fundamental attribution error
Hyperbolic discounting
Information bias
Irrational escalation
Negativity bias
Not invented here
Status quo bias
Survivorship bias
3 Types of Roadmaps in UX and Product Design
Article: link
tl;dr;
Roadmaps that include UX work generally can have 3 scopes: product, field, and specialty. Using the right type of roadmap based on problem setting can help us in achieving the “right” goals.
Product roadmaps are the highest-level roadmaps and traditionally inform priorities on field and specialty roadmaps. Field roadmaps are an expansion of the themes that UX owns on the product roadmap. Specialty roadmaps are an expansion of the themes that a UX area owns on the field roadmap.
6 weeks: why it’s the Goldilocks of product timeframes
tl;dr;
An interesting take from quarterly OKRs goals to 6 week goals
Build Products That Solve Real Problems With This Lightweight JTBD Framework
Article: link
tl;dr;
Learn more about the JTBD framework and how it is used at Instagram and Facebook.
Some advantages of using JTBD framework include:
Greator focus of the team solving “important” problems
Higher likelihood of delivering value to people
Greator understanding of competition to our product
The article provides templates and examples of using JTBD and ways in which we can weave the JTBD framework into various stages of product development.
You can either build something a large number of people want a small amount, or something a small number of people want a large amount. Choose the latter.
Go-To-Market - How to craft a winning marketing plan
Article: link
tl;dr;
Arkapravo writes about marketing being a core part of GTM strategy. Channel determination, pricing and message testing are key strategic elements which need to be fleshed out for a long term strategy. The writeup also provides insights on how to utilize value matrix to define our customer persona, the business problem(s) and corresponding product solution(s) and catered messaging.
The power law of channels says that a company that has product-channel fit will get 70%+ of its growth from one channel at a given moment in time. Thus, to get an optimum ROI, companies should invest in at most 3-4 channels at any given point in time.
Credits - Hubspot
Peacock’s Prize: Unbundling The Office
Article: link
tl;dr;
I am sure we all would have noticed Office moving away from Netflix to Peacock. Goodbetterbest writes about how Peacock is using “Office” to fuel acquisition and monetization.