1. Share In The Conversation
October 30, 2010
What the hell ?!
Your Product Mgmt Dream.
or Nightmare.
Adam Covati
@covati
http://argylesocial.com

2. Thank you to our
sponsors:

3. A little bit about me
• ~6 years as a PM
• Technical background
• Marketing Software
– mgmt& Analytics
• SMB to Enterprise
• Been all over:
– Sales, Engineering, Marketing, etc
• But I love Product Management
@covati

4. A little bit about Argyle
• Started in February
• Social Media Management & Analytics
• $33K grant in January
• $325K seed round in Oct
• Moving very fast
@covati

5. Our timeline
• Feb 15th
– first lines of code
• April 8th
– Alpha launched
• May 15th
– Beta launched
• August 8th
– Full app launch
• I said fast
@covati

6. Fast Planning
• Dream 2 years
• Think 1 year
• Plan 6 months
• Design 3 months
• Ok, that’s a bit too
simple
@covati

7. Using What’s There
• AWS – DBs, Servers, Queues, more
• Spreedly – recurring payments
• LAMP – no brainer
• Kohana – software frameworks
• No new wheels here
@covati

8. Iterating With Customers
• Early direct feedback
– In person!
• Feedback in the system
• Pester people via phone & email
• Make them feel special, give them something
@covati

9. Experimenting
• Try things with minimal investments
– Ship small pieces that add incremental value
• Learn from your ‘experiments’
@covati

10. Ask for forgiveness
• Sorry!
• Be genuine
• Keep trucking
@covati

11. Selling and Raising
• Selling vision & sizzle – it’s a fine line
– The art of the possible
– Nuts and bolts are important
• Raising in the triangle is ….
– Interesting
– Exciting
– Frustrating
– Possible
@covati

12. Thank you to our
sponsors:
@covati