saas product management (productcamp boston 2016)
TRANSCRIPT
2
A Definition
Key Takeaways
• SaaS product management not all that different from non-SaaS product management
• Key differences–Usage Analytics: insights that augment
customer knowledge– Scope: More to worry about besides the
core app–Revenue model: Drives focus on product
and business issues
5
SaaS PM: What Doesn’t Change
• Most things!– Focus on strategic (manage the tactical)–Understand your target and their needs– Iterate to success
SaaS Product Management is still just product management!
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SaaS: Implications(partial!)
• Centrally Hosted => Rich Usage Insights–High visibility into usage (and content)
• Centrally Hosted => “The Full Product”– Everything is your problem–Much is in your control
• Subscription => Revenue Model– Low friction evaluation / usage– Low(er) barriers to leaving–Must continually justify expense
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Data, Insight and Learning• Access rich data sources
– Detailed usage info • Page hits (yawn)• Feature use
– Options used– Customer type (and value)
• Product Interaction Flow• Results – of the session, and of the customer’s results• Dynamic testing
– A/B test of features, packaging, pricing, content, color…– Inspection
• Capture flows and results (retrospective usage studies)
Usage… What’s Popular?
• SiteCat• A/B Test results • Inspectlet Results
Usage (…or non-usage?)
• SiteCat• A/B Test results • Inspectlet Results
Fall Out and Flow
And Much More...
• Real time A/B Testing (Users get different experience or content)
• Detailed monitoring–View a replay of a user session where the
user added an image, but did not finish• Segmentation (by customer status, feature
use, content/template, lead source…)• Combinations of all of the above
Data Risks• Product analytics highlight
successes & problems • The ‘Answer’ is *not* in the data• Context: –Product Operation–User Intent–User Needs
Clues, not answers: Analytics never describe WHY!
The product is more than the application
Core App
Hosting and Scaling
Customer Support
Authenticate and Log-In
NOC
Web Analytics
Security & Compliance
Billing &E-
Commerce
Account Mgmt
Greater control of customer deployment
• Say goodbye to compatibility matrices!– Except for web browsers
• Adios to support of multiple versions of your application to support!
• Get immediate use and feedback on new features!
• Everyone gets bug fixes right away
With great power comes great responsibility
• Poorly designed features and bugs have an immediate negative impact
• Must manage change carefully – avoid big bang deploy of major application changes
• Scalability, performance and security are critical because exposure is with all customers
SaaS Subscription Economics
• Recurring Revenue– The gift that keeps on giving as long as you
earn it–Revenue lags investment and comes
monthly, so profit shows up down the roadAverage Revenue Per User (ARPU)
# of Months Retained×( ) - Cost of
AcquisitionCost to Serve- =
Customer Lifetime Value
Implications for product management
• Customer retention is critical to success– Drives more focus on enhancements for existing
customers– Deliver great initial experience– Don’t poke the “sleeping bears”
• Price can have a huge impact on profitability– Test different price points and packaging
• Understand and improve how your hosting scales once you build a larger customer base
• COA: provide easy ways for customers to refer other customers
• ID and drive out usability issues and bugs that increase support costs
Key Takeaways
• SaaS product management not all that different from non-SaaS product management
• Key differences–Usage Analytics: insights that augment
customer knowledge– Scope: More to worry about besides the
core app–Revenue model: Drives focus on product
and business issues
