Better Product Managers, and Product Management

Even when you’re surrounded by people who have fully bought in to the “lean” philosophy, it’s easy to fall into bad habits and start overbuilding things.

Lately we’ve set ourselves the following challenge: any task that will take more than a day to implement needs to have a written spec and estimates of how long it will take to complete.  Now, no one likes writing specs (our user stories are pretty spare and get fleshed out through comments in Basecamp) and we like doing estimates even less.  So we’re particularly motivated to look again at longer tasks and figure out how to do some version of them in less than a day.

(Devotees of GTD will recognize this as a variation on the ‘if you can complete a task in 2 minutes, just do it’ concept.)

Obviously, not all tasks fit into this mindset, but I’ve been pretty amazed by the amount of really useful one-day-or-less tasks we’ve been able to negotiate on, implement, and release.

I wanted to redesign our KISSinsights results page to incorporate pagination, “new responses since last login”, search, and filtering.  This would’ve required at least a couple days (and since it required multiple people collaborating, more than that in elapsed time).

Instead, we released search within results.

And then the ability to filter responses by people who chose a specific answer option.

The results page is now at least 25% more useful than it was 2 days ago, and no one had to write a spec or wait around for someone to free up.

It’s not just an engineering thing, either – I get these grand ideas and get all excited and write myself a task.  A few weeks ago, I created myself a task to create a series of marketing emails for my product to be sent out at weekly intervals.   It has been sitting there.  Why? Because it’s not a 1-day project – it’s a ‘wait until I have some quiet time to concentrate and do a bunch of writing, and then format all those emails’ project.   And we all know how often that happens.

So today I’m deleting that task.  I’m going to write one marketing email today.  Maybe I will write more later, but I will get one done today and cross it off and get it implemented.

What’s the biggest thing bugging you? I challenge you to find something you can do to make it better that you can complete today.  It may only be a tiny thing, but it will be better and more importantly it will be done.

This is another post about “later-stage customer development”.

You’ve probably heard the “medicine vs. vitamin” analogy of products — that is, to maximize your chances at success, it’s easier to sell medicine (that fix a specific, painful ill) than vitamins (that offer a vague promise of ‘feeling better’).

But I’ve realized there’s another category of product – the “gym membership” product:

• Your customers have accepted that they have a problem they really want to deal with (even if it’s not ‘life-or-death’).
• Of course there’s a free alternative, and some people get along just fine using it, but most people need the accountability, the support, and the motivation of a paid solution.
• Some people will use it religiously every day, some will use it once a week, and some will use it gung-ho for a week and then peter out for a few months.
• Some people will actually never use it, even though they keep paying you.  They’ll kind of resent you for it, though.
• There are a lot of different ways to use it to meet your goals. Some people walk in full of purpose, and know exactly how they need to use it.
• Most people need suggestions on how to use it effectively.  Otherwise they use it poorly or just wander around aimlessly.  They’ll be unsatisfied and rate you poorly.
• But if you force people through a long “initiation” session, they’ll find that obnoxious.
• Once people feel comfortable using it, they’ll find it gives them a lot more energy.  They’ll wonder how they ever got along without it!

You could also call these aspirational products.  We sign up because we want to be that kind of person.

Unlike most products — where the first and biggest challenge is getting people to give a damn enough to give you five seconds of their attention  — it isn’t that big a challenge to get people to sign up.   They see the equivalent of “better body in 90 days” and that’s enough to get them to click.

The challenge is getting people to get started and come back.   To do that, you have to anticipate and answer customer questions.  And the more subtly you do this, the more your app will feel intuitive/”just works”/delightful.

These are the first two questions that I’m trying to answer right now for both KISSmetrics and KISSinsights.

Question 1: What do I do first?

You probably have a pretty good sense for, in an ideal world, what you wish your customers would do first in order to get the most value out of your product.  However, you may be wrong.  This is where, now that you’re in later-stage customer development, it can be tremendously useful to walk someone through using your product the way you think it should be used.

One of two things is likely to happen: they’ll say, “oh, that makes sense – why doesn’t the app tell me I should start by doing that?” or they’ll say “that doesn’t make sense – why can’t I do X first?”

For KISSmetrics, we heard a lot more of the former, so we built a first-user experience designed to tell you how you should start.  Of course, we’re continuing to realize that there’s a lot more the app could be “telling” people, so we continue to tweak.  For KISSinsights, I suspect the latter is more accurate, which means we’ll need to make bigger changes to the first-user experience.

Question 2: How are other people using it?

I think this question really encompasses three things: “I want proof that other people are actually getting value from this”, “I want to see how much trouble they had to go through to get results”, and just plain curiosity.

I posted some examples for KISSinsights, which seems to have been a big help already (judging by the number of emails I’ve gotten since then).

One thing I’m still pondering, though — how do you identify the “goes to the gym every day” customer vs. the “tries to make it once or twice a week” customer, when they’ve just started to use your product?

Dealing with these questions has meant a very different kind of customer interview.  I wrote before that I was wary of telling the customer “here’s our product and here’s how you should use it” – now I think the way to think about it might be:

“Traditional” product development: “Let me tell you about us”

Early-stage customer development: “Tell me about you”

Later-stage customer development: “Let me tell you about other people like you“

Into every product manager’s inbox a certain amount of angry customer mail must land.

But when do you respond to it, and when do you ignore it?

1. The Pure Vitriol-Filled Name-Calling Email

Example: (I don’t think I need to provide an example.  We’ve all seen these.)

Verdict: Ignore.

No good can come from responding to these.  Best case scenario, you respond rationally and embarrass the hell out of the person who now regrets sending such an unprofessional email.   That’s the best-case scenario.

I’ve seen lots of worst-case scenarios where this devolves into an otherwise reasonable product manager sinking to the level of the original sender and then the whole exchange gets posted on someone’s blog and everyone is embarrassed.

2. The 90% Vitriol-Filled Name-Calling, 10% Actual Valid Issue Email

Example: “I can’t believe you f***ers lost my data after I spent 15 minutes typing it in!!! This is the worst piece of …”

Verdict: Respond.

I actually think it’s a great idea to respond to these, provided that: a) you delete all references to the rude parts and b) you reply to the actual valid issue with neutral, objective language.  (“You’re right, it was unacceptable that you were unable to find your data.  It’s actually not lost, though, your saved draft can be found [here].”)

By deleting all references to the rude parts, you allow them to pretend that you didn’t see it and they didn’t write it.  But if you can’t be neutral/objective, just delete it.

3. The “Whatever, You Suck” Email

Example: “your pricing sucks I’m outta here”

Verdict: Ignore.

There’s a complaint here, but no substance to respond to.  What can you say — ‘no it doesn’t'?  No.   You have to just ignore these.

Note that if there’s a reason or some additional supporting details “Here’s why your pricing doesn’t work for me…”, then you can and should respond.  Even if all you can say is “I’m sorry we can’t do more but we appreciate your feedback”.

4. The Frustration-Laden Tirade Email

Example: “First I tried to search for a message I’d sent but kept getting no results, so I had to page through three hundred messages individually, then when I finally found the right one I tried to print and the page stopped responding and logged me out and then…”

Verdict: Respond. (preferably via phone)

It is much easier to call these people, sound sympathetic, and let them vent for a few minutes without interrupting.  Then, figure out what they wanted to do and walk them through doing it.

If you don’t have a phone number, try to do the same thing via email – agree that it was frustrating, agree that that’s unacceptable, and then figure out what they wanted to do and walk them through doing it (or, if possible, do it for them.)

These are the people who, if you ignore them, will hate you and spread negative feedback about you whenever they get the chance; but if you respond nicely and help them, can be turned into your best WOM allies.

5. The I’m Not Using Your Product Again Until You …  Email

Example: “I keep waiting for you to support [feature X] but you still haven’t.  I’m going to have to stop using your product and look for another solution because [feature X] is totally critical to my business.”

Verdict: Respond (unless it’s a repeat offender).

It is tempting to try and convince the person that they should continue using your product.  It is also ineffective (most of these people will continue to use your product, albeit a bit angrily).  If there is a workaround to accomplish the same goal that [feature X] would achieve, tell them about it.

If you will never, ever, ever build [feature X] because it makes zero sense to your business, tell them that as well!  (Most people are reluctant to do this, but I’ve had almost exclusively good conversations that started from being really honest and saying something like: “We’re not planning on building X, and here’s why.”

The one exception: if that same guy keeps sending you the same email about [feature X], you can ignore them after email #2.

6. The Email/Tweet/Blog Post/Comment That Makes You So Mad That You Really Want to Write Something Rude Back

Example: will vary by person.

Verdict: IGNORE IGNORE IGNORE (and then think about it).

It doesn’t matter if there are totally valid points that should be addressed, or the person is completely factually wrong, or even if you feel like this is borderline slander – if you are angry, do not respond.

If you have done your job building relationships with your other customers, the odds are high that someone else will respond on your behalf and correct any misinformation.   Or you can ask a more stoic coworker to come up with a neutral response.

But even if not, think about the options:

1. Angry ranter writes comment, no one responds (clearly no one agrees with them, so you end up looking fine)
2. Angry ranter writes comment, lots of people come to your defense (you end up looking even better than before)
3. Angry ranter writes comment, lots of people agree (clearly you have a problem, and you should focus on fixing it versus debating it)

Safer to ignore (and see #1: avoid being sucked into an argument that can only make you look bad.)

Of course, for all of us, our goal is to get as little of this email as possible.  But until then, keep growing that skin thicker, and feel free to hit the ‘delete’ key sometimes.

You know the phrase – to eat your own dogfood – meaning, to use your product thoroughly so you recognize when the workflows are awkward or the help text is unhelpful.

But what happens is that we’re eating dogfood with a side order of the Curse of Knowledge.  We know how our products ought to behave and we know what they’re capable of, and that affects our impression of how easy they are to use.

So what we really need to do is eat someone else’s dogfood – that is, experience our products as though we were someone else, a someone who lacks all the inside knowledge that we have.

Here’s what I did last week:

• I offered to set up customers’ KISSmetrics funnels for them (this offer still stands, if you’re interested)
• Customers who agreed, I walked through their sites and identified the key workflows that I believed they ought to be tracking
• I created their funnel events and reports, and checked back to troubleshoot them
• I followed up (via email or phone) to explain what I’d done with their accounts and why I recommended using the product in this way

And you know what?

1. It was a LOT of work.
2. It was totally and completely worthwhile.

Being completely unfamiliar with their sites and goals put me in a similarly handicapped position as the customer who is unfamiliar with my product.  It became painfully obvious that certain copy was being ignored and that some features were grouped poorly.  There were several configurations where I thought, this would be much easier if we’d provided a visual example instead of trying to write inline help.

Equally valuable was the followup.    I would say “I’d recommend you use the product in this way–”, and someone would respond with “–but we can’t, because of this detail of how our application works”.   A step-by-step walkthrough primes the customer for a lot of little “but…”s and “why?”s that might never make it into a bug report or feedback email.

–

As I’ve written this, I think “but doesn’t this sound like the ‘traditional’ product approach?  Telling the customer, “here’s our product and here’s how you should use it” instead of understanding their needs?

And I think the difference is that these conversations were preceded by months of customer development, and conducted (as best I could) as a conversation.   This is where tone makes a big difference.  “Here’s how you should use our product” is very different from “Based on [assumptions], I recommend you use our product in this way – let me know what you think as I explain the details.”

There has been a lot written about early stage customer development – finding your market, identifying pain points and constraints, creating a vision that reflects customer needs without being ‘what customers ask for’.  But I’m finding that later stage customer development is a bit of a different beast.

It’s the time to move beyond abstractions and into specifics.  You’ve proven your case in theory; that’s why customers are using your product.  But there are definitely gaps in practice between how you envision customers using the product and how they actually are.  I’ll continue to write more as I learn more.