Data Driven Product Management

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After a long time, I was finally able to find some time for my book (data driven product management). I now have 108 pages of content, ready to be published. I think I am 70% there. Now time to figure out, how to publish on Amazon.

Graph Database - Neo4j

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I have been studying graph databases for last few days for my new company, and Neo4j guys have done a pretty amazing job. If you are not very familiar with graph databases, think of them as a database to represent relationships between objects.

Since the real world relationships are very complex to represent in a regular relational databases, NOSQL databases come to the rescue.

Use case:

• User 1 is a friend of User 2
• User 1 is a man
• User 1 lives in San Francisco
• User 1 likes Netflix
• User 1 watched movie seven
• Users 1 traveled to Paris

The set of properties associated with user 1 like, he is a man and lives in San francisco and the relationships to other objects like is a friend of user 2 and likes object Netflix are very complex to represent in regular relational databases like MySQL. 

NOSQL databases are of 4 kinds, based on the use case. 

1. Key value

2. Column databases

3. document databases

4. graph databases

The above use case is best represented in a graph database. You can get more details by watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=BFTLOABf5oY youtube video.

I will continue writing more as I explore it further.

Product Definition –startup vs. large company

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Startups follow the start-fire-aim approach to product definition as against the traditional start-aim-fire. Basically startups do not have the luxury of time and resources to conduct focus group, gather requirements by interviewing users and then build a product based on the sum of needs. Obviously, they have some idea about the market needs and problems they are solving, but they have not yet validated those assumptions with customers, apart from few visionaries. There is of course the risk of ending up building a product which only appeals to visionaries.

Startups first build a product (start-fire) and then look for customers (aim) who are in need for solutions that this product attempts to solve. Well, what they are building is a minimal viable product (MVP) and hence they are very nimble both in terms of product strategy and technical implementation. They can quickly iterate over the market feedback and adapt. I will talk more about MVP later, but for now, it is sufficient to understand that MVP should include only minimal set of features needed to demonstrate the product solution to few customers (few being the operative word here).

Different dynamics are at play in large firms, as they are either adding new features to existing products where the customers and needs are well understood, or they are working on developing new products for existing market and hence they have good understanding of their customers. They could be looking to expand the existing products in new markets and hence they just need to add few features to meet the needs of other market segments. In either case, they have the luxury of time/resources and opportunity to follow the voice of customer (start-aim-fire).

Recommended books for Product Management

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I have been in various roles during my career (software industry), but product management was by far the toughest. Unlike various roles, where practice can increase skills, product management requires true blend of art and science.

These books will not only help you increase your knowledge, but also provide you various frameworks and mental tools, to help improve your product management skills.

Interaction design:

• The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
•  About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design
•  Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

Marketing:

•  Marketing Management (14th Edition) 
•  Data-Driven Marketing: The 15 Metrics Everyone in Marketing Should Know
•  Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers

Product Management:

•  Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love
•  Take Charge Product Management: Take Charge of Your Product Management Development; Tips,
• Tactics, and Tools to Increase Your Effectiveness as a Product Manager
•  The Product Manager's Desk Reference

 Entrepreneurship & Customer Development:

•  The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win
•  The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
•  Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers

Strategy and Innovation:

•  Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
•  Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors
•  The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business

Pricing:

•  The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing (5th Edition)

Metrics and Testing:

•  Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer 
•  Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions

These books should at least get you started in the exiting field of product management. As discussed earlier, product management is blend of art and science, so no amount of reading can substitute for your inherent product passion and hard work. Even though fluid intelligence plays a role and is often seen as the common factor among successful product managers, I believe that these skills can be developed over time. These books are part of long series of articles I plan to write about product management. This is an effort both to guide prospective product managers as well as learn through interactions and critical thinking which comes through writing.

IntelliVocab hits half a million users

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In our efforts  to pivot Faqden Labs, we completely neglected  IntelliVocab for over last 6 months. We were surprised to see few weeks back, that we have silently hit 500,000 users and still going strong. It is still rated as the top 10 SAT and GRE app on app store. As I wrote multiple times in the past, running a company with multiple co-founders with diverse background is probably the single biggest challenge you will face as an entrepreneur. 

We had been struggling with split focus between education apps, enterprise apps and services since our inception. After a long and prolonged discussions, we decided to shut down our services group and focus exclusively on products. Within product we split the company into 2 separate division, one focusing on enterprise apps (www.xibird.com) and other focusing on the original vision of the company (education apps - www.faqden.com).

With renewed focus on turning around our education related product line, I am hoping, we can move the company back to its former glory. I will continue writing about my experience with the turn around efforts and challenges so that other entrepreneurs can benefit from it. Obviously this is good news for our IntelliVocab users as they will start seeing updates every couple of weeks compared to 0 updates in last 6 months.

Back to Blogging after a long time

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Its been quite a while since I last blogged. I am hoping to blog more frequently in 2012 and yes it is my new year resolution. Running a startup is very exhausting. There is always one other problem to solve and 10 new ones popping up. We have almost reached 40 employees now and still growing.

We have recently decided to focus one an enterprise product and still in the ideation phase. Happy new year to everyone. btw, we did release the wakeupbuddy app, now named Bongiorno!. More about it later.

Our CTO interviewed by GeekWire

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GeekWire, a leading online magazine interviewed our CTO, Sridhar over the thanks giving weekend as part of their startup spotlight. This spotlight is very encouraging and validates our 3 month old startup.

Started by three technology veterans, we have already reached double digit growth and looking forward to a meteoric growth in future. We have come a long way. With 2 successful products behind us, we are on the verge of releasing the WakeUpBuddy app which is now named "Bongiorno". At the rate we are growing we will soon reach the 50 mark we set for ourselves for calling it a successful start-up.

http://www.geekwire.com/2011/startup-spotlight-mobile-app-developer-faqden-labs