March, 2018

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Know the World Your Product Lives in

The Product Guy

Guest Post by: Peyvand Mohseni (Mentee, Session 5, The Product Mentor) [Paired with Mentor, Jordan Bergtraum]. You have a product; you are passionate about it, you believe in it, you want it to succeed and you want your users to benefit from its awesomeness. You better know the world in which your product lives, what it can do today, what it will need to do tomorrow, how much it is in demand and what other products do very similar things.

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Putting $125M to work for you, our customers

Intercom, Inc.

We just raised $125M in a round led by Mary Meeker at Kleiner Perkins. Here’s what we’re going to do with it. 2018 is shaping up to be a massive year for the Intercom platform. Historically, we’ve spent proportionately way more on research and development than other software companies we track, and that won’t stop any time soon. This funding will go straight into building great new software at a pace you’ve yet to see from us.

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Be a Balanced Product Leader, Not a Feature Broker or Product Dictator

Roman Pichler

Feature Broker and Product Dictator. How do you best lead the stakeholders and development team as the person in charge of the product? One way to answer this question is to avoid unhelpful but common leadership styles. Two of these styles, feature broker and product dictator, are shown in the picture below. A feature broker is a product person who relies on others—the stakeholders, development team, management, users, or a customer—to come up with ideas and make product decisions.

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3 Simple Steps To Make Your Customer Stories 10x Better

The Secret PM Handbook

How To Accelerate Sales With Great Storytelling. In my articles about go to market , I always mention the importance of “customer stories.” These stories are a critical component of the knowledge that product management can provide to sales and marketing and sales engineers to help ensure sales success. But, if you’re like me, maybe you aren’t so comfortable with “storytelling.

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How to Achieve High-Accuracy Results When Using LLMs

Speaker: Ben Epstein, Stealth Founder & CTO | Tony Karrer, Founder & CTO, Aggregage

When tasked with building a fundamentally new product line with deeper insights than previously achievable for a high-value client, Ben Epstein and his team faced a significant challenge: how to harness LLMs to produce consistent, high-accuracy outputs at scale. In this new session, Ben will share how he and his team engineered a system (based on proven software engineering approaches) that employs reproducible test variations (via temperature 0 and fixed seeds), and enables non-LLM evaluation m

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Lucia Adams – How to Innovate in Organisations That Don’t Like Failure

Mind the Product

Summary: In order to drive lasting and sustainable change, you need to be curious about the people you’re working with and explore their perspectives. This helps you to collaborate with all parts of the organisation no matter what their attitude to change may be. Finally, you’ve got to be lean, delivering quick wins that you can build together to win hearts and minds.

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How to Lead without Authority (a Product Manager POV)

The Product Guy

Guest Post by: Cornell Pineda (Mentee, Session 5, The Product Mentor) [Paired with Mentor, Vikas Batra]. When I started my current product role last September, I had a textbook definition of what makes a great product manager. In my view, he or she should have these main skills: manage the release process and roadmap prioritization, be able to suggest technical solutions during discussions with developers, and be knowledgeable in all the tools and terminology of the Agile process.

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Navigating the complexity of change aversion

Intercom, Inc.

Change aversion is a concept well known to designers and product managers. It’s the negative reaction users have to changes in your product, whether that’s functional changes such as updates to product features, or interface changes such as visual redesigns. History is littered with cautionary tales of introducing change. When Twitter changed its “faves” icon from stars to hearts, users threatened a mass exodus.

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Technology Transformation – Adobe Lightroom

The Product Bistro

Introduction. One of the most challenging tasks in product management is a major architecture shift of a product. Primarily a software related issue (although there are architecture transitions in hardware that are thorny too), the point when an old architecture is holding you back, and market forces are driving the discussion in your market space, a clean rewrite is what is required.

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The Secrets of Highly Successful Sales People: Objection Handling

The Secret PM Handbook

How to use better stories to overcome sales objections. During the sales process, the prospect may – and usually does – mention obstacles to getting the deal done. Reasons they might not want to do the deal. They might say “It’s too expensive,” or “your competitor has feature X that you don’t have, and we really need feature X.”. This is a normal part of the sales process.

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Your Guide to Product Management Interviews: Top Questions with Answers

Stand out in your product management interview with guidance from Priyanka Upadhyay, an experienced product leader and Stanford Online program coach. In this guide, Upadhay dives into five key competencies interviewers will likely want to assess. She provides sample questions with detailed answers spanning: Product strategy Product design Execution Market estimation Teamwork Confidently land the product management role you want by pre-empting what interviewers are looking for and demonstrating y

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Growing up Lean: Lean Strategies for Maturing Products

Mind the Product

Building an MVP and launching a product is actually the easy part. It’s much more difficult to manage a product in its maturity or decline stages, so I wanted to tackle the challenges of a product that’s past its initial growth stage, and share some tips on: – How to avoid becoming a feature factory, while taming your beast of a backlog. – How to use your roadmap to drive experimentation to hit company objectives. – How to disrupt yourself before someone else does.

Strategy 177
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TEI 168: Roles and responsibilities of product managers – with Steve Johnson

Product Innovation Educators

Cutting through role confusion to create successful products. My mission is to inspire and equip product managers to have greater influence in their organizations and over product. I call this helping product managers to become product masters, and that is what both this podcast and the training I provide are about. Helping you make that move from product manager to product master is explored in this episode by considering: Various perspectives on product management, Responsibilities of the role

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Using Discovery Insights Personality Types for Better #prodmgmt

The Product Guy

In a recent live stream from one of our mentors of The Product Mentor , Vikas Batra, lead a conversation around “Discovery Insights”. We are always looking for more product mentors from all around the world. Signup to be a Mentor Today! Check it out… About The Product Mentor. The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals… Better Decisions.

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Start your marketing with why: Getting your story right

Intercom, Inc.

No matter how good your product is, if you can’t tell a cohesive, compelling story about it, you’re going to have a very hard time getting people’s attention when you actually do take it to market. Companies like Amazon understand this well and are rightly famous for their “work backwards” philosophy. You start by writing the press release, to articulate how the world will see your product, and then work backwards until you get to the minimum set of technology requirements to achieve your goals

Marketing 223
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Effective Risk Management: Balancing Safety, Compliance, and Opportunity

Effective risk management in product development balances safety, compliance, and opportunity. Risks can't be eliminated, but they can be mitigated through structured assessments, clear documentation, and expert guidance. Engaging specialists ensures efficiency, regulatory adherence, and product security while reducing costly oversights. A well-executed risk management plan includes frequent evaluations, defined assessment criteria, and a structured decision-making process.

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Breaking into PM

bpma ProductHub

Wondering how to “crack the code” for a career in Product Management? Whether you’re a newbie in the job market or transitioning from a different role, here are some tips from seasoned Product Managers.

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3 Simple Steps To Make Your Customer Stories 10x Better

The Secret PM Handbook

How To Accelerate Sales With Great Storytelling. In my articles about go to market , I always mention the importance of “customer stories.” These stories are a critical component of the knowledge that product management can provide to sales and marketing and sales engineers to help ensure sales success. But, if you’re like me, maybe you aren’t so comfortable with “storytelling.

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Manage Conflict by Building Your Product EQ

Mind the Product

I introduced a concept called Product EQ when speaking about managing conflict at work at a recent ProductTank London. It’s a term that focuses on the emotional intelligence / emotional quotient competencies that were introduced by Daniel Goleman and remain essential to our craft such as influencing, teamwork & collaboration, leadership, organizational awareness, and empathy.

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TEI 169: How to make product roadmaps not dangerous – with Bruce McCarthy

Product Innovation Educators

Shifting focus from the how to the why by properly using a product roadmap. My 12-year old son recently got a belt sander from his Opa. Opa is a German name for grandfather. My son is making a bookshelf and has a lot of sanding to do. The belt sander will do the work quickly. It is the right tool for the job, but only if it is used properly. The powerful motor and rapidly moving belt also makes it a beast.

Roadmap 160
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Enterprise ABM Marketing Tools: A Marketers Guide

Savvy B2B marketers know that a great account-based marketing (ABM) strategy leads to higher ROI and sustainable growth. In this guide, we’ll cover: What makes for a successful ABM strategy? What are the key elements and capabilities of ABM that can make a real difference? How is AI changing workflows and driving functionality? This Martech Intelligence Report on Enterprise Account-Based Marketing examines the state of ABM in 2024 and what to consider when implementing ABM software.

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Managing Technical Debt

The Product Guy

In a recent live stream from one of our mentors of The Product Mentor , Felix Sargent, lead a conversation around “Technical Debt”. We are always looking for more product mentors from all around the world. Signup to be a Mentor Today! Check it out… About The Product Mentor. The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals… Better Decisions.

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Why live chat isn’t just for customer service anymore

Intercom, Inc.

For all the time and money we spend attracting customers to our website, isn’t it odd how little we spend trying to convert them? According to an eConsultancy report , for every $92 spent acquiring prospects only $1 is spent converting them. Sure, that dollar could give you returns in spades, but in reality the odds of that are no better than a craps table in Las Vegas.

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Is MVP Dead?

bpma ProductHub

Is Minimum Viable Product Dead? – By Don Stoddard . Minimum Viable Product is a widely accepted concept; so why do so many people want to declare it dead? There are numerous articles now about MVP and why it no longer works. Much of the discussion centers around the misuse and confusion of the words “minimum” and “viable.” In many ways, MVP suffers from its own popularity associated with both good and bad products.

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Stop Building for the Sake of Building

UserVoice

More is better, right? The more stuff your product can do, the more markets and personas you’re satisfying. The more capabilities you have, the fewer reasons for a prospect to say no. The more functionality, the longer people will spend using it. The more things it can do, the more people will pay for it. Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves… That might hold true for a Swiss Army.

Marketing 127
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Less Stress, More Success: Accounting Best Practices & Processes for 2025

Speaker: Duke Heninger, Partner and Fractional CFO at Ampleo & Creator of CFO System

Are you ready to elevate your accounting processes for 2025? 🚀 Join us for an exclusive webinar led by Duke Heninger, a seasoned fractional CFO and CPA passionate about transforming back-office operations for finance teams. This session will cover critical best practices and process improvements tailored specifically for accounting professionals.

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Four Questions That Will Lead to Better Prioritization

Mind the Product

Making sure that you and your team are working on the most important thing at any point in time is part of the fun and headache of being a product manager or a product leader. Many times looking at the backlog list or strategic priorities will just cause your eyes to glaze over as you consider the actual time and effort that those lists represent. Rik Higham had it right when he said that prioritization is more about guesstimates than being a precision art.

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TEI 167: Value Innovation in 10 steps for product managers – with Dick Lee, Ph.D.

Product Innovation Educators

Expanding on Episode 166 to cover the full Value Innovation process for product managers. The last interview, episode 166, was a panel discussion with innovators at companies using Value Innovation to discover what customers really want before building a product. The panel participants talked about a 10-step process they used. This discussion provides details for each step as well as where additional resources are found.

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Imbuing Product Strategy

The Product Guy

Guest Post by: Marissa Fong (Mentee, Session 5, The Product Mentor) [Paired with Mentor, Bill Gourlay]. Product management requires product strategy. What are your customers’ needs? How do you best solve for these needs? How do you get your team and organization to effectively solve for these needs together. These are all key questions addressed as part of product strategy.

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How to run a successful beta in 7 steps

Intercom, Inc.

Prior to joining Intercom as a Product Manager, I had never run a structured beta. When it came to finally running my first one, I was surprised to find very little information online that could help me. I’ve run a lot of successful betas now but I learned my craft through tribal Intercom knowledge, built up by other Product Managers over the years.

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B2B eCommerce, Self-Service Portals, and PIM Trends for 2024

In 2024, B2B customers expect better quality and service with streamlined experiences that match consumer-grade simplicity—no long calls or meetings required. Our B2B eCommerce Trends Report, surveying 400+ B2B professionals in the US and Europe, reveals how eCommerce has become vital to top companies’ strategies. The report shows how leaders are leveraging eCommerce to break data silos, unify channels, and deliver the personalized experiences that customers demand.

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Product Management Conferences: The Complete List (2018 Update)

Tim Herbig

Product Management Conferences are a valuable opportunity to get inspiration for your daily work through new input and build a robust network. Both are incredibly important to make progress in your career as a product manager. To help you cut through the noise of all the conferences out there, I put together this comprehensive overview of the most relevant conferences out there.… Continue Reading.

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Product Success vs. Customer Success: Is It Time For a Lifestyle Change?

Product Management University

Here’s a scenario many people can identify with. A routine visit to the doctor reveals that you weigh more than you should, your blood pressure and blood sugar are high, your cholesterol is nearing the danger zone and your heart isn’t functioning as well as it should. Though you’re not suffering any ill effects from these issues today, your doctor tells you that it’s time to make some lifestyle changes in order to avoid serious health issues later.

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Building Awesome Product Teams by Martin Eriksson

Mind the Product

Summary: Build better product teams by hiring smart, diverse groups of people, getting out of the way, and focusing your teams on outcomes rather than outputs. It’s not About Products, it’s About People. A lot of people think that product managers need to be experts in technology, user experience and business strategy. However, normally product managers have arrived in their role through just one of these areas of work – and are picking up the others as they go along.