In this session led by two experienced product managers from Constant Contact, a leading SaaS company, you will learn about how a Product Manager operates when they have a SaaS-based product. We will compare product management for a SaaS product with that of packaged or on premise software. The opportunities and challenges presented by SaaS products will be explored. The use of web analytics software to understand customer usage will also be discussed using real-world examples. About Tom Mignosa and Mike Byerly Tom and Mike are both long-time product management professionals who have over a dozen combined years of experience at Constant Contact, a pioneer in SaaS applications for SMBs.

1. SaaS Product Management
Mike Byerly
mikebyerly89@gmail.com
@MikeByerly
Tom Mignosa
tmignosa@gmail.com
@tmignosa

2. 2
A Definition

3. Key Takeaways
• SaaS product management not all that
different from non-SaaS product management
• Key differences
–Usage Analytics: insights that augment
customer knowledge
–Scope: More to worry about besides the
core app
–Revenue model: Drives focus on product
and business issues

4. 5
SaaS PM: What Doesn’t Change
• Most things!
–Focus on strategic (manage the tactical)
–Understand your target and their needs
–Iterate to success
SaaS Product Management is still just product
management!

5. 7
SaaS: Implications
(partial!)
• Centrally Hosted => Rich Usage Insights
–High visibility into usage (and content)
• Centrally Hosted => “The Full Product”
–Everything is your problem
–Much is in your control
• Subscription => Revenue Model
–Low friction evaluation / usage
–Low(er) barriers to leaving
–Must continually justify expense

6. 8
Data, Insight and Learning
• Access rich data sources
– Detailed usage info
• Page hits (yawn)
• Feature use
– Options used
– Customer type (and value)
• Product Interaction Flow
• Results – of the session, and of the customer’s results
• Dynamic testing
– A/B test of features, packaging, pricing, content, color…
– Inspection
• Capture flows and results (retrospective usage studies)

7. Usage… What’s Popular?
• SiteCat
• A/B Test results
• Inspectlet Results

8. Usage (…or non-usage?)
• SiteCat
• A/B Test results
• Inspectlet Results

9. Fall Out and Flow

10. And Much More...
• Real time A/B Testing (Users get different
experience or content)
• Detailed monitoring
–View a replay of a user session where the
user added an image, but did not finish
• Segmentation (by customer status, feature
use, content/template, lead source…)
• Combinations of all of the above

11. Data Risks
• Product analytics highlight
successes & problems
• The ‘Answer’ is *not* in the data
• Context:
–Product Operation
–User Intent
–User Needs
Clues, not answers: Analytics
never describe WHY!

12. The product is more than the application
Core
App
Hosting and
Scaling
Customer
Support
Authenticate
and Log-In
NOC
Web
Analytics
Security &
Compliance
Billing &
E-
Commerce
Account
Mgmt

13. Greater control of customer deployment
• Say goodbye to compatibility matrices!
– Except for web browsers
• Adios to support of multiple versions of your
application to support!
• Get immediate use and feedback on new
features!
• Everyone gets bug fixes right away

14. With great power comes great responsibility
• Poorly designed features and bugs have an
immediate negative impact
• Must manage change carefully – avoid big
bang deploy of major application changes
• Scalability, performance and security are
critical because exposure is with all customers

15. SaaS Subscription Economics
• Recurring Revenue
–The gift that keeps on giving as long as you
earn it
–Revenue lags investment and comes
monthly, so profit shows up down the road
Average Revenue
Per User (ARPU)
# of Months
Retained×( ) - Cost of
Acquisition
Cost to
Serve- =
Customer Lifetime Value

16. Implications for product management
• Customer retention is critical to success
– Drives more focus on enhancements for existing
customers
– Deliver great initial experience
– Don’t poke the “sleeping bears”
• Price can have a huge impact on profitability
– Test different price points and packaging
• Understand and improve how your hosting scales once you
build a larger customer base
• COA: provide easy ways for customers to refer other
customers
• ID and drive out usability issues and bugs that increase
support costs

17. Key Takeaways
• SaaS product management not all that
different from non-SaaS product management
• Key differences
–Usage Analytics: insights that augment
customer knowledge
–Scope: More to worry about besides the
core app
–Revenue model: Drives focus on product
and business issues

18. Questions?
Mike Byerly
mikebyerly89@gmail.com
@MikeByerly
Tom Mignosa
tmignosa@gmail.com
@tmignosa