Category: PRODUCTHEAD – Product management newsletter

PRODUCTHEAD is my free curated newsletter of the best articles, videos and podcasts from product leaders and commentators all over the world. All neatly packaged up in a weekly email delivery for your reading, viewing and listening pleasure. Curated by Jock Busuttil (jockbusuttil.com).

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» Celsys are going to start charging for software updates to their popular Clip Studio Paint product

» The way Celsys communicated this to their users caused outrage — some of which was justified

» Fog Creek found themselves trying to monetise their viral product Trello, which it had promised would be free forever

» Fog Creek had first mover advantage on an easily copied product, which it exploited by a timely sale to Atlassian

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» In solving their own internal scaling problem, Amazon inadvertently created the building blocks for the AWS platform

» Stripe’s founders didn’t shy away from tackling an unattractively difficult problem

» Platforms connect different sides of a market, even if they have dramatically different needs and capabilities

» Twilio’s founder prioritised the developers who’d implement his API, not the managers who’d pay for it

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» Every other team is allowed to be uncertain about the future — so should product

» There are different types of question for strategy, opportunities and interventions

» Avoid investments that are neither defense nor offense

» What people say and how they really feel can often vary

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» Your users must value your product more than it would cost them to switch

» An end-of-life policy sets out the process you will use to retire products for customers

» Think about your users and customers’ technical and economic issues first

» Retiring a product gracefully means making a plan

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» People more easily accept they’re not seeing the whole picture than being told they’re wrong

» Don’t make people feel bad about their beliefs — be kind and connect with them

» Research shows that we interpret words like “we believe” with differing confidence levels

» There is often a lack of discipline when it comes to talking about uncertainty

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» Use empathy to appreciate the context, needs and pain points of your stakeholders

» Understanding people’s social style helps you influence stakeholders more effectively

» You can use different modes of persuasion to craft a more compelling argument

» Picking the right time to make your point can amplify your persuasiveness