Despite $ billions spent understanding the market, product managers in B2B software don't know what to build most of the time. Here's how you can do better as a product manager and leader.

1. Christian Bonilla
Founder and CEO, UserMuse
Christian@usermuse.com
@smartlikehow
Overcoming the #1 Problem
in Product Management *
*According to Product Managers

2. 2
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3. A few of my more formative experiences in product…
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Learned the Value of
Market Knowledge
Tough Start in Ad Tech Started a Company

4. The product manager’s job is to build the right product
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“I want to drive the bulk of my product
managers’ workload into the ‘fuzzy
front-end’…generating ideas,
understanding what customers
want…and what could be
commercially successful.
It involves lots of talking to
people...understanding the market
and validating ideas before we start
spending lots of money to build
things.”
- Gerrit Vermeire, Head of Product
Management @ Barco
Product
Manager
Workload
Business case and
product design
Launch End-of-life
Highest
Zone of
Influence

5. Enterprise software companies spend billions on figuring out what to
build, but they mostly don’t know.
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…but the knowledge isn’t.
Source: Vital; Captora; IDC, Pragmatic Marketing 2016 Survey, UserMuse Survey Research
62%of product managers still say not knowing
what to build is their #1 problem
35%of PMs have to add custom features
in order to close deals
The spend is there…
2016 Product Management +
Market Research Spend
$3.6B

6. We asked product managers a single, open-ended question:
What’s your #1 product management challenge right now?
6Source: UserMuse Product Manager Survey. Published /www.mindtheproduct.com/2016/10/the-biggest-challenge-for-product-managers/

7. Product managers are too stretched (or inexperienced)
to do market validation
Product managers (and marketers) can’t do their most important job
“I’m trying to make decisions about how to improve the product
with no data about which features are most valuable to users.”
“Stakeholders clouding the vision not based on evidence. Too
many high-level ideas added to the roadmap as a “must-have” but
not backed up with validation.”
“I am too busy writing specifications to be able to do the
important customer feedback, research, and strategic work.”
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Here’s what they’re saying:

8. What happens without market validation of the roadmap?
• The roadmap fills up with pet
projects, executive priorities,
requests from sales, and best
guesses
• Design tries to “pretty up” unviable
features
• Sales comes back with requests
from the field to close the next deal
• The cycle of abuse continues
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9. So, how do we get the right
features on the roadmap and
keep the junk off ?
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10. #1 Make sure your product stands for something – not everything
• Making it perfect for the target
user means it isn’t perfect for
everybody
• Great products feel like they were
designed by someone who knows
exactly what you want to do
• Advocate market validation and
real user discovery
• Establish product principles –
public declaration of your beliefs
and intentions 10
Example Product Principles
• Reading is best done slowly and without distraction
• A web page should be as easy to read as a book
• Image clarity is as important to the reading experience as
the words themselves
• Functionality that supports the reading experience cannot be
dependent on WiFi or 4G connectivity

11. Ever heard someone say this in a meeting?
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You’re not
Henry Ford!

12. #2 Get market validation on big ideas
Join Sales Calls - What problems do prospects articulate and how do they react to the pitch? (Beware
of bias)
Talk to Existing Customers – High-bandwidth communication (but even more bias)
Survey the Market – Directionally useful. Website polls are easy if you have the traffic; survey apps
and panel providers for those who don’t
Attend Conferences – Go where your market is! Valuable if you pick your spots and manage costs
well.
Recruit Your Own Panel – Use outside firms, networking through content, good old fashioned cold-
emailing
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The Key: Don’t ask the market what they want – ask what hurts.

13. #3 Don’t misread buyer enthusiasm
• Companies don’t buy “interesting.” They
buy things that:
• Make big problems go away
• Make them a lot more money
• When you show a prospect something
they really want, they’ll tell you
• Any prospect below a “9” on the
enthusiasm scale rounds down to zero
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14. #4 Create a business cases and realistic revenue projection
• Make the team comfortable with
subjectivity
• Put together a real business case for
important features and products
• Importance of the problem
• Opportunity size
• Pricing
• Training plan
• Market positioning
• Marketing goals
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15. Who influences the roadmap besides the product team?
15Product
Executive Team
Partnerships
Sales
Marketing

16. #5 Manage the “shadow product team”
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AccountabilityTransparency and
Helps people who don’t understand:
- the level of effort involved
- the opportunity costs of their
request
- How everything fits into the
product architecture
Creates trust and shows everyone:
- that Product has it under control
- they their opinions matter
- that the development machinery
works

17. Remember: Every company has
the product it deserves.
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18. Thanks for Attending!
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