5. You can have a truly world class product
You can have tens of millions of revenue
You can have thousands of customers
You can have an amazing valuation
You can have an incredible brand
And still be a 💩 business :-)
8. Early Growing Up Standard
The early days →
→ A breakout startup!
• Make it different
• Make it good
• Make it work
• Make it valuable
9. Early Growing Up Standard
The product grows up →
→ A breakout startup!
• Make it different
• Make it good
• Make it work
• Make it valuable
• Make it sellable
• Make it reliable
• Make it secure
• Make it scale
→ An established
10. Early Growing Up Standard
The product becomes standard →
→ A breakout startup!
• Make it different
• Make it good
• Make it work
• Make it valuable
• Make it sellable
• Make it reliable
• Make it secure
• Make it scale
→ An established
• Make it justifiable
• Make it adoptable
• Make it interoperable
• Make it customizable
→ A mainstream
11. Early Growing Up Standard
Product stage Marketing stage Scale stage
15. THE MARKETING
STAGE Learn the ways people buy
Solve from the inside out
Market the Job-to-be-Done
Practice effective testing
16. Trialist
Active user
Onboarded user
Signed up visitor
Visitor
Advert clicker
Audience
THE MARKETING FUNNEL
Happy, paying customer 😄
DEMAND GENERATION
PRODUCT MARKETING
ENGAGEMENT
PRODUCT
17. We tend
to look at
funnels
from the
outside in
Trialist
Active user
Onboarded user
Signed up visitor
Visitor
Advert clicker
Audience
THE MARKETING FUNNEL
Happy, paying customer 😄
DEMAND GENERATION
PRODUCT MARKETING
ENGAGEMENT
PRODUCT
18. The temptation
is to start
marketing here
Trialist
Active user
Onboarded user
Signed up visitor
Visitor
Advert clicker
Audience
THE MARKETING FUNNEL
Happy, paying customer 😄
DEMAND GENERATION
PRODUCT MARKETING
ENGAGEMENT
PRODUCT
19. • It’s short term responsive
• It’s easy to experiment with
• It can be high impact
• There’s whole industries here to help
Audience
THE MARKETING FUNNEL
20. “If your customers aren’t
happy, engaged, profitable, and
sticking around for the long term,
then the last thing you want
to do is get more of them.”
21. The best
marketing
starts here
Trialist
Active user
Onboarded user
Signed up visitor
Visitor
Advert clicker
Audience
THE MARKETING FUNNEL
Happy, paying customer 😄
DEMAND GENERATION
PRODUCT MARKETING
ENGAGEMENT
PRODUCT
22. … and works
backwards
Trialist
Active user
Onboarded user
Signed up visitor
Visitor
Advert clicker
Audience
THE MARKETING FUNNEL
Happy, paying customer 😄
DEMAND GENERATION
PRODUCT MARKETING
ENGAGEMENT
PRODUCT
23. THE MARKETING
STAGE Learn the ways people buy
Solve from the inside out
Market the Job-to-be-Done
Practice effective testing
24. Are you building what you sell?
Are you selling what you build?
Are you selling what they’re buying?
Are they buying what you’re selling?
25.
26. What are they looking for? What doesn’t work? What’s their definition of value?
How do they measure things? Where are we most solid? Why does the job go away?
SHOPPERS ACTIVE
NEW CHURNED TRIALING
INACTIVE
29. INDIRECT
COMPETITORS
SECONDARY
COMPETITORS
DIRECT
COMPETITORS
They do the same job in the same way
(McDonalds vs Burger King)
They do the same job in a different way
(Zoom vs Business Class travel)
They do a different job with a conflicting outcome
(McDonalds vs Weight Watchers)
Know who you’re fighting with and why
30. EXISTING
SOLUTION
NEW
SOLUTION
THE 4 FORCES INFLUENCING A CUSTOMER SWITCH
Reasons to switch
Reasons to stay
Problems with Current Product Attraction of New Product
Existing Habits & Allegiances Anxiety & Uncertainty of Change
PUSH PULL
ANXIETYHABIT
31. What customers
think they have
What customers
actually have
What companies
actually built
What companies
think they built
THE “9X EFFECT”
33. What customers
think they have
What companies
actually built
Why would we switch???
HOW CUSTOMERS EVALUATE YOUR PRODUCT
34. What customers
think they have
What companies
actually built
think they built
What customers
actually have
SWITCHING IS HARD SO
YOUR PRODUCT NEEDS TO BE
THAT MUCH BETTER
35. THE MARKETING
STAGE Learn the ways people buy
Solve from the inside out
Market the Job-to-be-Done
Practice effective testing
36. HOW PEOPLE BUY YOUR PRODUCT
They search by
the solution
category
They want a
better version of
what they
currently have
They want you!
They search by
the description of
their problem
PROBLEM BASED CATEGORY BASED COMPETITION BASED BRAND BASED
37. “I need a tool to
talk to my
customers.”
“I need something
better/faster/
cheaper than my
current solution.”
“I need an
Intercom on my
website.”
“People are
coming to my
website but not
buying.”
HOW PEOPLE BUY YOUR PRODUCT
PROBLEM BASED CATEGORY BASED COMPETITION BASED BRAND BASED
38. THE MARKETING
STAGE Learn the ways people buy
Solve from the inside out
Market the Job-to-be-Done
Practice effective testing
39. Default to redesign, not optimize.
A billion dollar company isn’t built
from better button colors.
43. Don't get sucked into black hole of tiny
optimizations. Know when to reset.
44. 1. How much could this experiment
impact the metric?
2. Given that impact, how long will
you need to run the test to get
accurate results?
3. Is it worth the wait?
BEFORE YOU EXPERIMENT, ASK YOURSELF…
45. Sign up now
Time to implement: 2 hours
Time to test: 68 days
Total time: 70 days
Percentage improvement: 1.4%
Sign up now
CONTROL SIGN UP FLOW TEST SIGN UP FLOW
46. Time to implement: 4 days
Time to test: 20 days
Total time: 24 days
Percentage improvement: 4.2%
CONTROL SIGN UP FLOW TEST SIGN UP FLOW
59. HOW YOU ALLOCATE YOUR TIME HERE IS CRUCIAL
Current
customers
Product
iterations
Voice of sales
Competitive
landscape
Churn
reports
Product
health
New ideas
60. SOME WILL FLARE UP, SOME YOU HAVE TO EARN
Current
customers
Product
iterations
Voice of sales
Competitive
landscape
Churn
reports
Product
health
New ideas
62. If we make decisions that perfect us for one customer
but make us useless for others, we’ve over-solved
OVER-SOLVING
CUSTOMER’S NEED
PERFECT SOLUTION
69. THE SCALE STAGE
Evolve how you build
Beware of dogma
Maintain your edge
Evolve your roadmap
Evolve how you measure
70. INNOVATION AND PROBLEM SOLVING
ARE DIFFERENT MODES OF WORK
Addressing problemsIterations & new ideas
Speculative
Open ended
Failure is acceptable
Opportunity to differentiate
Well understood outcome
KPI driven
Failure rarely acceptable
Follow best practices
71. EVERY PIECE OF PRODUCT WORK NEEDS
A REVENUE HYPOTHESIS
This work will…
Help Sales close more deals
Help us sell at higher prices
Decrease customer churn
Improve our site conversion rate
Give us a unique position in market
Decrease costs to serve our customers
74. Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature
%ofcustomersthatuseit
Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Featur
“Just this once”
“Look at the ARR tho!”
“Said they’ll quit”
75. This isn’t some product purist bullshit.
You pay for that complexity in your
Marketing, Customer Support, Success, etc.
It’s “easy” to build everything customers want.
76. Act on your customers’ behalf,
not their request
77. THE SCALE STAGE
Evolve how you build
Beware of dogma
Maintain your edge
Evolve your roadmap
Evolve how you measure
78. Net dollar retention is the defining metric
of a subscription business.
Churn and expansion will define your success
80. GROWTH $100/M and 100% NDR.
0
500
1000
1500
Jan 2019 Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
81. DOES YOUR BUSINESS GROW FOR SHRINK BY DEFAULT?
0
500
1000
1500
Jan 2019 Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
By adding new customers
By expanding from existing customers
82. GROWS BY $100 BUT CONTRACTS BY 1%
0
500
1000
1500
Jan 2019 Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
83. WHAT DOES “GOOD” LOOK LIKE?
Twilio
Atlassian
Slack
Pager duty
New Relic
Net Dollar Retention
0% 50% 100% 150%
target range
120%-140%
155
148
143
140
115
99. “We need the features they have”
will soon turn into
“We need to differentiate”
100. THE SCALE STAGE
Evolve how you build
Beware of dogma
Maintain your edge
Evolve your roadmap
Evolve how you measure
101. All opinions in your software
cost you customers,
so they better be worth it.
102. • “We don’t think we should collect email addresses up front”
• “We have specific ways we want our customers to speak”
• “We think the messenger should always ___ and never ___”
• “We think there’s only ‘X’ ways you can set up permissions”
• “Our bot Operator should always sound like a ____”
REAL EXAMPLES FROM INTERCOM:
103. When an opinion is costing you
more than it’s earning you, it’s dogma.
104. • Attract a set of target
customers
• Inspire your team
• Fuel your marketing
• Reduce your product
scope
• Simplify your product
• Block sales
• Confuse your team
• Are only surfaced in
product
• Paint you into corners
technically
• Confuse your users
GOOD OPINIONS vs BAD OPINIONS
105. “But we’ve always done that”
“I remember back when…”
“But on the blog it says…”
“I found this Google Doc and it said”
“Des once said at an all hands that…”
OPINIONS SHOULD EXPIRE