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Agile, Product Management, Professional Development

Product Management 101: things to consider if you’re a start-up

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July 8, 2016

- Agile, Product Management, Professional Development

Being part of a start-up is exciting and oftentimes that means you’re moving so quickly that you might forget certain essential things. So keep yourself in check with this check-list.  

1. Start with your Addressable Market
Even if you have the greatest idea in the world, if no one wants to purchase or engage with it then it’s a non-starter. Work out your addressable market and don’t be overly optimistic. It’s better to drill your addressable market down as small as you can to make sure your business case still stands up with less people using the product.  

2. Take a holistic view
Before you begin looking at the business case, write down all the things that your product will need. Look at it laterally and investigate whether there are regulatory or legislation requirements. Establish whether you have any expertise in the areas concerned and if you don’t, build a team around you who can help figure it all out.  

3. Review competitor products
What other companies are out there who have built similar products? How do they perform, what are the strengths and weaknesses of those products and what is the gap that your product will fill? If they have 2 million purchases per month how long did it take them to achieve that goal and how much marketing investment was required?  

4. Build a business case with a long term view
Many small businesses fail within the first few years, up to 60% according to Huffington Post, so don’t just look at the numbers in the short term, look at your long term numbers. Extrapolate a business case that goes out to the 5 year mark. Yes it gets difficult when you’re launching and have no historical trends to rely on, but you can revisit and revise it as time goes on. The business case will serve as a guidance point on where you expected to be versus where you are. If you focus on the short-term, you might find you lose out on a viable long-term business that takes some time to get off the ground.  

5. Test the market
Now that you’ve established you believe there’s enough people in market who want your product, that there’s a gap in competitor products which you fill, and that there’s a long-term commercially viable business, it’s time to test your assumptions. Build your minimum viable product (MVP) to establish if there is enough interest in market before you start building the real thing. Remember your MVP doesn’t have to be functioning – it could be a video that explains the product and gets interested people to sign up; or it could be a site that isn’t actually hooked up in the back end. Its core function is to determine if you should proceed to build your product, it doesn’t have to actually be your product.
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Product Management

How getting your user persona and content model right will improve your SEO

By on

March 7, 2016

- Product Management

If you’re publishing a website that is driven by content, as most are these days, then there are two key building blocks you should begin with before you even consider hiring a designer or developer:
1. User Personas that will visit your site
2. Content model of your site
Getting these two simple things correct at the very outset will ensure your site is setup to be well ranked in Google search results. It’s the online equivalent of surveying the land and putting in deep foundations when you build a house.  

What are User Personas?
User Personas are a term thrown about a lot by “digital people” trying to make the landscape seem more complex than it is, but there’s nothing complex about them. At a base level, your user personas are the groups that your client base falls into – broken down into all the relevant information that client may be looking for and their habits and likes. For example, if you take our site, some of our customer user personas would fall into the below categories:

1. Small to Medium Sized Publishers
– Typically a business that is sub-75 employees
– Produces content that is distributed online (via websites, mobile apps, content aggregators etc)
– Has a small tech team but limited holistic digital expertise in the form of product management or SEO specialists
– May have one or more sites that are not yet responsive in nature

2. Real Estate Companies
– Franchise, regional or national
– May have an IT team but no in-house digital expertise in the form of product management or SEO
– Require assistance on improving their online presence to maximise customer leads on potential properties for sale

3. Start-Ups
– Still in the stage of boot-strapping, yet to hire digital expertise in-house
– Need help with turning their idea into a product and doing the logistical thinking around factors that could impact that product’s success
– Actively pursuing a product in one of the following areas: mobile apps, responsive websites, music streaming, mobile SMS & IVR
Or, another example would be a real estate website. Think of all the possible customers it has and then list those customers in order of importance, e.g.:
– Prospective Sellers
– Potential new franchisees
– Property Developers looking for contact details
– Other agents who want to work for the company  
When creating user personas try to come up with as much detail as possible. Make them a real person, give them a name, age, family status etc. All of this information will assist you in getting inside that persons head and will ensure your site is best tailored for them.  

I’ve got my user personas – now what is a content model?
Your content model should be the next thing to consider. A content model is exactly that, a description of all the types of content you plan to include on your product or website, information on how that content will interact with one another and details on what type of content should be structured versus not structured. Google gives ‘extra points’ to sites that have a well structured content model which makes it easier for it to read.

By having structured data, you can then more easily manipulate that data in future without having to reverse engineer your code. An example here may be a recipe website which has been created with a structured content model and taxonomy. Having this in place means that you can easily search on all recipes which are “Thai” in cuisine and you can sell advertising against those. It also allows you to easily extract that data from your CMS and promote it via a partner website. You can more easily manipulate that data by running a database query so that for every occurrence of the word “chicken” inside ingredients, you can insert a sponsor name in front.

Building the foundations that your business runs on is more important than the speed with which you get your website live. Solid foundations will lead to a more sustainable, stronger, business in future. If this article has inspired you and you’d like to find out where you can improve online to better your business, contact us for more details.  

User persona image borrowed from Roman Pichler – if you don’t know agile and want to learn, his books are a great start.
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Agile, Product Management

Just what is a vertical slice? A guide to #agile development.

By on

June 9, 2015

- Agile, Product Management

A friend of ours used to joke that the name of this company should be Vertical Slice because of the number of times we’d say it in a given day and how we’re forever having to explain to new people just what it means. It’s an agile term and yes, I know it sounds like we’ve drunk the kool aid – because we have.  

So, just what is a vertical slice? Well it’s one way of describing a software development practise that can be applied to pretty much anything in life and it boils down to this: rather than developing different pieces of the puzzle in isolation, instead, work on making the smallest possible bit of the puzzle all work together end-to-end first.

For example, if you were making a trifle you would start with a very thin mould (thin slice) where you layer all the ingredients in on top of one another, leave it to set in the fridge immediately (where it sets much quicker because it’s not the full cake), then take it out, test it out and see what it tastes like (the customer response).  

mke-agile-032014-slicing-the-cake-user-story-decomposition-4-638
There are lots of advantages to developing this way. In the first instance, because you’re making all the layers of the cake work together at the start, you inherently reduce your risk of blowing your deadline by working with technologies that might be difficult to integrate. You identify problems much faster, thereby giving more time in the project for thinking of a solution (rather than the converse which would leave you at the end of the project rushing to make layers work together).  

Secondly you get to demonstrate a version of the end feature to your customer much faster, meaning you can learn from their feedback about whether this was what they wanted in the first instance and what you can do to improve the feature based on their actual requirements (not just what you think their requirements are).  

Thirdly, it gives you the option to launch the full product faster. You cut out wastage in developing features and functions that are not desired by the customer (no matter how logical they may seem to the feature team) and, if needed, you can launch a solution that makes a date requirement but doesn’t necessarily have all the bells and whistles that originally were envisaged. Meaning you get to market faster than your competitors.  

We could go on but you get the idea. Take your requirement and boil it down to the simplest possible variation. For example, if your requirement is that customers can login to your site, and the full version has login across multiple different types of accounts, start by doing login just with Facebook. Don’t style it in your initial story. Boil it back to the basic requirements: – A customer can login from X device, using X browser, via their Facebook credentials This will give you immediate visibility of any technology problems and allow you to pivot your requirement much earlier without having wasted valuable resource on design.  

*Vertical slice slide borrowed from Dave Neuman @ Slideshare
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Product Management

#Responsive versus fixed width website design – does it really matter? Top 5 tips.

By on

March 6, 2015

- Product Management

In short, yes. These days the internet is accessed through a plethora of devices: desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile and even smart watch. So what do you do when it comes to designing your website and which device do you design for? The majority of internet traffic is migrating towards tablet and mobile – Facebook apparently has more than 70% of its access from mobile devices – so you need to design for them all, and the only way to successfully do that is to design responsively.  

1. Start with the user and the content
Content, content, content. Who are you building the site for and what types of content do they expect to see? How are you planning on connecting your content so that your user can find more content that is relevant to their needs? Think about the types of use cases that will be involved and what that means for your content length, style and tone.  

2. Make the decision to design responsively, not adaptively
True responsive design continues to change even after the page has loaded – unlike adaptive which loads the size of page most suitable for the device size it believes you are on. You can see this in action by dragging your browser window to make it bigger and smaller – if the site resizes, it’s responsive; if it doesn’t, it’s adaptive.  

3. Mobile First
Do the most difficult thing first, so now that you’ve established your content hierarchy, work out how that’s going to fit on the smallest possible screen size. What will it look like? Is it logical? Will someone be able to use it while they walk? Crack the mobile layout and the others will flow way more easily.  

4. Test and Roll
This should really go without saying, but make sure you’re testing your design, not just for functionality, but for usability. Don’t design for an end state that a user might not want. Technology moves too quickly now to do end state designs for every screen of a site, so do the design as part of an agile development process. You’ll thank me later.  

5. Make sure your designers and developers communicate constantly
A great design is fabulous, but if the effort to do that outweighs the business value associated with that feature then you need to revise the design – and vice versa. If the feature has masses of business value, make sure you tell the designers so that they can spend a bit of extra time on it.
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Emerging Technology in Advertising, Mobile Apps, Mobile Optimisation, Product Management

What gets better traction for publishers? Mobile Web or Apps?

By on

February 13, 2015

- Emerging Technology in Advertising, Mobile Apps, Mobile Optimisation, Product Management

A study from eMarketer notes that adverts on mobile web gets considerably more click throughs than adverts displayed via mobile apps. It’s a fairly significant difference, with 35% on mobile web, and 26% on mobile apps. So what does that mean for publishers who run an advertising model? Likely that it’s time to pursue a two pronged strategy similar to the one that the New York Times has been attempting.

Give those customers who are new and find you via search, Facebook and other social channels access on the mobile web with ads and native sponsored content and focus the effort on developing apps which are single purpose and not free to download – similar to the New York Times Now app which is $6 per month and gives users a summarized version of the top stories from NYT.

These apps should be directed towards your loyal customers, who are coming to you because of the types of content you provide and the brand recognition you have built up. Key to this strategy is remembering the different use cases that your customers have on mobile, and then the difference use case between mobile web (often a push scenario which is more transient) and apps (a pull scenario which is more consistent). Monitor your results, and in true agile style – inspect and adapt.
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Mobile Apps, Product Management

Stream your music in your crowd sourced ride: #uber #spotify

By on

November 27, 2014

- Mobile Apps, Product Management

Ever felt frustrated when you were about to leave for a big night out and had to switch off your music to get into your taxi to get there? Well, now you don’t have to. Uber and Spotify have teamed up so that you can take your playlists straight into your Uber ride with you.

If you’re not familiar with Uber, it’s basically a ridesharing service that uses your phones GPS to locate you, find their nearest registered driver, and direct them towards you – even if you’re not sure where you are. You don’t need any cash, payment is taken straight from your registered credit card. Once you’re in, you control the music, and even the volume – all from your mobile phone. Isn’t technology great?!
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Emerging Technology in Advertising, Mobile Optimisation, Product Management

Using new #technology to enhance traditional #publishing

By on

October 21, 2014

- Emerging Technology in Advertising, Mobile Optimisation, Product Management

It’s no secret that traditional publishing (think print newspaper and magazines) have struggled with the dawn of digital and content being freely available online 24/7. In the same way as the music industry have raced to stop piracy instead of embracing the new revenue models that digital can bring, the publishing industry has been trying to lock consumers into subscription models for news content that they can get online for free elsewhere.

It’s worth noting that our founder’s background (way back in the days of very old Panasonic phones), was journalism. She started off wanting to break into the publishing industry, and learned all she could about their main revenue model: paid for by user, supplemented by advertising.

Back then, news wasn’t freely – in all senses of the word – available online, which meant that consumers were happy to pay the price for the magazine or newspaper and be sold to by advertisers inside. Now that consumers have access to publishers all around the globe, you can be sure that whatever news you are reporting is available elsewhere. So it begs the question: what can you offer your customers that they can’t get elsewhere? Editorial Selection

Now there is so much proliferation of content, it makes the relevant and useful information much harder to find. Enter mobile apps like NYT Now. This was an app launched by the New York Times designed to present you with the most important information, summarized by their editors for only $2 per week. Exclusive Content

Again pioneered by the NYT – New York Times Opinion. They took what was exclusive to them (the opinion pieces written by their editorial staff) and packaged it up in an easy to access format for just $1.50 per week. Integrated Content Content that has a presence in your print edition, on your website and in your app. Not just the same content repackaged for the different device or medium, but actually optimised for the device or medium. For instance, using mobile to its full potential. If you own Vogue, and know that your magazine is most frequently read in a hairdressing salon, then why not put an ad in the print version of the magazine to encourage your user to get their phone out and interact with the advert in order to get free hair product? Or use the app and augmented reality to see what they would look like with a particular model’s hairstyle?   After you have sorted out your content and established what you have that no one else has, how can you keep the advertising dollars rolling in? Pay per Download – just a few cents
Rather than paying on a subscription basis for access to every piece of content on a particular publication, instead pay on a per article basis. There’s a crowd-funding project on Kickstarter just now called Nanotransactions, the idea behind which is to let users pay just a few cents to access the articles they really want to read. Again, this requires good quality journalism and content that the user isn’t going to find elsewhere. Full disclosure: the man behind Nanotransactions, Nick Ross, is a friend of mine. Enhance your Print Edition
As an addition to your print edition, offer your advertisers the opportunity to insert their TVC into the magazine or newspaper. They get to use content they have already created and use it to further improve their brand presence. Increase your Advertising Footprint
Use mobile or tablet to have customers interact with the adverts inside your magazine, and use this to take their details and pass the leads back onto the advertiser, giving them what you’ve never been able to give them before: qualified leads from print advertising.   There is lots of potential out there, but let’s hope that the publishing industry doesn’t go the same way as the music industry.
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Product Management

The importance of continued learning in the rapidly evolving digital world

By on

October 13, 2014

- Product Management

We were having a conversation this morning about how how quickly technology, and development practises change and the things you can do in order to keep up to date. Following on from that, we’ve been having a think about the top ways to stay on top of those changes (listed below) and why continued learning is so important.

You see, it’s not just about ‘what you know for that next meeting or pitch’, it’s also a way to expand your brain and keep that grey matter from dying off as you get older. A recent study from the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute and the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in the US, found that of the participants in their study, those who regularly played puzzle games (i.e. tested their brain on a consistent basis), were more likely to have a greater brain volume and scored higher on given tests. So don’t just keep learning for work, keep learning for your health. 1. Read, read, read

My top resources for digital developments are the following:
– GigaOm
– GizModo
– Business Insider Tech 2. Online webinars

One of the best ways to keep up to date, is via webinars – many are absolutely free in exchange for you providing your details for marketing purposes. If you’re after an online library, we’d recommend General Assembly. They’ve got hundreds available across different topics such as Data, Digital Marketing, Mobile and Web Development, and User Experience Design to name but a few. They’re available On Demand as well, meaning you can access the courses at a time that suits you. 3. Talk Talk Talk – especially to your tech team

You see those guys sitting quietly bashing out line after line of quality code? They’re your best resource for new technology. Nine times out of ten they’ll know about it as it happens, if not before. They’re a silent, secret weapon. One of our favourite things to do used to be to get a couple of our developers together (they usually work better in small groups) over a few drinks and start them waxing lyrical about where they see the future of tech going. Sometimes it went down the rabbit hole but sometimes they’d come up with something brilliant that was then incorporated into our next product.
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Mobile Optimisation

Etihad rolls out mobile and internet roaming across its 777 fleet

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October 9, 2014

- Mobile Optimisation

Etihad recently announced that you will now be able to use your mobile for internet access and voice calls when flying on its 24 777 aeroplanes. Customers will be able to use Wi-Fi, mobile services and live TV and packages will start at $5.

Most interestingly however, the ability to use your mobile phone to make voice calls and send and receive text messages at 35,000 feet will be charged at international roaming rates by the customer’s mobile phone provider. So even if you’re technically still in Australian airspace, you’ll be charged at international rates.
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G67 is a consultancy firm which provides companies with outsourced digital product & marketing strategy services.

We can help you to prioritise the important changes you need to make to your online assets to connect with your customers and generate more revenue.

We're based in London, UK and work with companies all around the world.

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