3 product management pitfalls all founders should avoid

Photo credit: William Iven

If you’re new to the term, product management is a way of thinking and doing things to promote the success and wellbeing of your product.

Here are 3 common pitfalls I’ve seen founders happily walk into, only to realise later that they could have fared better avoiding them.

1. Not knowing who your customers are

Seriously, the first mistake to marketing or building a product is diving straight into things without understanding your users enough. That’s just called walking blindly in the dark. And if you’re thinking whether or not you can afford the time to do a customer study, I’m sorry, but you cannot afford not to do this. Any research you can afford is better than no research.

Say if you wanted to buy a meaningful birthday gift for someone, you’ll need to know them well — where they work, the colour they like, their hobbies, etc. It works the same way.

If you want to build a meaningful and useful digital product, spend some time knowing who your customers are, not just their demographics (age, gender, occupation, etc.). Go deeper. Study their needs and behaviours rather than demographics. Define your market and customer to good detail if you want to build a meaningful product for them.

2. Competing on features

I could preach all day on this. Too many of my clients fall into this pitfall, thinking that having ‘cooler’ features or just more features will help them gain an edge over their competition.

WRONG.

I get it. You’re in panic mode, sweating in your pants and you need a quick fix because your competitors are moving at breakneck speed. But features aren’t your quick fix. Features aren’t supposed to make you feel more confident about your product either.

Instead of building more features for the sake of it, spend that time making your ‘Y’ super polished. Products aren’t ever perfect, but they can be well-polished.

 Disruption is in the experience, not the tech. Tech just enables the experience to happen.

Fill in the blanks — “My product lets you do Y well.” ‘Y’ is your product’s core user experience, core functionality. It’s a simple one liner of not more than 5 words at best.

So instead of building features A, B, C, D, E, etc. (friend referrals, comments, reviews, etc.), think about building features that would make your Y super awesome. If a feature doesn’t make your ‘Y’ better, rethink it.

I’ve had stubborn clients who wanted to build an entire Titantic, when all they needed was a good boat to launch beta. It hardly worked out that they needed any of the extras. Building the cruise ship also meant that they compromised on the quality and the potential of building an attractive, gorgeous boat with the time and resources that they had. They’d rather have an empty more, than a meaningful less.

3. Being a yes-man