Short-sighted product management

When it comes to building a product, it is crucial to understand that you are not the only one making it. If you do not deliver in time or if you do not offer something unique, you’ll soon start losing business to the ones who do. If your business plan relies on selling your product cheaper than the others in the market, that’s a plan waiting to blow up in your face quite spectacularly.

I’ve had the opportunity to work both directly and indirectly with quite a few product managers in my career so far, so it is safe to say that I’ve seen both sides of the spectrum — some with great vision, while some who could not see past the monitor in front of them. Learning from my interactions with them and all the customers I’ve dealt with, I’ve realized that the two most important aspects of building a great product (apart from a good product vision) are customer feedback and market research. Without these two, it becomes nearly impossible for you to stand out from your competitions.

1. Inviting regular customer feedback
   First and foremost, you have to listen to your customers and understand what they need. Understand how each of them uses your product and decide on improvements. There are certain things which even the customers wouldn’t know they needed. That’s where your product vision comes in. Your focus needs to be with simplifying the customer needs whether or not they asked for it, but always with ROI in mind.
2. Conducting immense market research
   When you decide to build any feature into your product, you need to first analyse if someone would really need it. Just because you thought it is a good idea does not mean that your consumers would. On the other hand, it also gives you an opportunity to come up with your USPs. You learn what the current market has to offer, and you know what your consumers need. Put these two pieces together and build a kickass solution which can become your USP. In short, the best way to decide whether or not to build a feature is thorough market research.

While it is good to be aware of what your competitors are doing, your prime focus should be to make your product stand out from the rest. You have to remember that somebody imagined a button to bring the windows up and down while everyone else was using a manual crank in their car. Ferruccio Lamborghini didn’t hold on to making tractors driving around in a faulty Ferrari and Facebook showed no mercy to Orkut. If they all had maintained a status quo, none of them would be where they are today.

The point is — if you are a product manager who’s going to compare your product with others in the market and immediately say that “None of our competitors has it, so we don’t need it”, you’re missing the bigger picture. If all of your competitors are providing the same features as you, you no longer have a solid USP. And when you maintain that equilibrium, remember that they are only a feature away from taking your clients with them.