Launching a new brand within a large company is a challenge - when that new brand disrupts the flagship brand, it’s a massive challenge. Michael took the participants on his journey of conception, to building, to the launch of RealEstate.com – a brand that competes with its parent company, Zillow.com. He talked about starting from zero and convincing executives and other product teams that creating a disruptive new brand was (and is) a good idea. The audience learned a little bit about how Zillow Group’s product organizations work and more specifically how a team can still function as a small startup within a 2500+ person organization.

1. Disruption from Within with Zillow’s Senior
Product Manager
www.productschool.com

2. FREE INVITE
Join 12,000+ Product Managers on
productschool.com/slack-community

3. Product
Management
2-month part-time Courses

4. Coding
for Managers
2-month part-time Courses

5. Data Analytics
for Managers
2-month part-time Courses

6. Include @productschool and #prodmgmt at the end of
your tweet
Tweet to get a free ticket
for our next Event!

7. Michael Wong
Tonight’s Speaker

8. Disruption
from Within
Michael Wong
Senior Product Manager Zillow Group

9. What do these companies have in common?

10. This is my PM path..

14. Opportunity to Product
- We started with a team - Diverse Solutions IDX Sold
- 4 Developers and PM
- Experience with React, Node.js, ES and
microservices
- “What do you want to do next?”

15. Opportunity to Product
- We started with a team
- Problems to solve
- Hackweeks 3-4 times a year
- User research teams
- Consumer or B2B?
- Personas (Beth, Susan, Harriott)
- Large TAM
- Investors
- Relocators / Hyper-local
- First-time Homebuyer
- 42% of the market

16. Opportunity to Product
- We started with a team
- Problems to solve
- Design sprint

17. Opportunity to Product
- We started with a team
- Problems to solve
- Design sprint
- First time homebuyers do not understand
all of the costs of purchasing a home
- Interaction with calculators
- No brand loyalty
- Many shoppers find real estate sites
through search instead of direct to site

18. Opportunity to Product
- We started with a team
- Problems to solve
- Design sprint
- Get buy in
- Be honest about cannibalization
- Make realistic projections
- Identify resource opportunities
- Become an evangelist
- Share your work early and often
- Public thanks and appreciation
- More money than time (startup inverse)

19. Opportunity to Product
- We started with a team
- Problems to solve
- Design sprint
- Get buy in
- Build it
- Leverage your resources
- 6 TB of data in different schemas
- Listings, parcel, schools, local, GIS
- Always ask: What would you have done
differently
- It is not a product until somebody buys it
- Test your assumptions
- Don’t just A/B test
- Surveys, User research, instrumentation
- Empathize with your users

20. Opportunity to Product
- We started with a team
- Problems to solve
- Design sprint
- Get buy in
- Build it
- Other things
- MVP
- Just because you’re in a large org doesn’t
mean you can’t do an MVP
- Bootstrapping
- Use your resources, do things cheaply and
stay small. Your influence and success
should not be tied to the size of your team.
- Make friends with legal
- Empathize with your users

21. Thank you.
Questions, comments, concerns?

22. Part-time Product Management Courses in
Silicon Valley, New York, Los Angeles, and
Orange County
www.productschool.com