1. PRODUCT
DISCOVERY
Kevin Wang
January 2012

2. WHO
AM I?

3. WHO
AM I?
(I don’t mean
existentially…)

4. Kevin Wang
VP, Product Marketing at
SecondMarket
Early employee, helped
define PM and PMM functions
Tweet me:
@sevin514
Email me:
kwang@secondmarket.com
Etc:
about.me/sevin

6. Product Discovery is
a customer-centric
approach to figuring
out what to build

8. 1 WHY?
2 WHAT?
3 HOW?

9. 1
WHY
DO
DISCOVERY?

10. Will help you
answer the most
IMPORTANT
product question…

11. Are you building something
that people need?

12. Are you building something
that people can use?

13. Are you building something
that people will use?

14. Are you building something
that people will pay for?

15. Are you building something
that people will love?

16. Are you building something
that people will love

17. love

18. This is what it looks
like when you are

22. What is the
BIGGEST
mistake you
can make
when building product?

23. Ugly design
Poor response time
Not integrating social
Not monetizing early

24. Ugly design
Poor response time
Not integrating social
Not monetizing early

25. Ugly design
Poor response time
Not integrating social
Not monetizing early

26. Ugly design
Poor response time
Not integrating social
Not monetizing early

27. Ugly design
Poor response time
Not integrating social
Not monetizing early

28. Those things are all VERY
important

29. Those things are all VERY
important and may lead to
failure

30. BUT there’s one thing that
trumps them all

31. BUT there’s one thing that
trumps them all

32. BUT there’s one thing that
trumps them all
YOU’RE FIRED!!

33. Not talking to
CUSTOMERS!!

34. BTW,
talking to customers
≠
asking what they
want

35. Find their
pain
points

36. Customer interaction
is at the
of Product Discovery

37. We were suffering from…

38. “Just-in-time” delivery of
requirements, coding, then rushing
features out the door…

39. Which led to feature
chasing…

40. with no evidence that features help
the business…

41. Use a
PRODUCT
DISCOVERY
process to get to
MVP

42. Minimum
Viable
Product

43. Smallest possible
product that is

44. Smallest possible
product that is
valuable

45. Smallest possible
product that is
valuable, usable

46. Smallest possible
product that is
valuable, usable
and feasible

47. Product
Discovery = MVP
as fast as possible

48. Product
Discovery = MVP
as fast as
possible, as cheap
as possible

49. Build it
and they
will come

50. Build it
and they
will come

51. Think like a
SCIENTIST!

52. Get supporting evidence that the
solution will move KPIs

53. Make changes/pivots based on
learnings

54. Make changes/pivots based on
learnings
BOOM GOES
THE
DYNAMITE!!

55. Identify major usability issues
before launch

56. Won’t guarantee homeruns, but will
prevent strikeouts!

57. Find
Product/Market
Fit!!!

58. 2
OUR
DISCOVERY
PROCESS

59. Roadmap
Discovery
Backlog

60. • Repository for all ideas we
Roadmap think will move the KPIs
• These ideas get validated in
Discovery
• Prioritized by what we want
to put through discovery first

61. • This is where the
magic happens!
Roadmap • Identify solution
that is valuable,
Discovery usable and feasible
• As fast as possible
• As small as possible
• 80% of the time for (MVP)
PM and UX
• 20% for Lead Eng

62. • Items that have gone
through Discovery and we
want to move ahead with
• “Fully baked” items
Roadmap
• A couple of iterations
worth of stuff
Discovery
• Does not have stuff we’ll
never get to
• Bugs, small features still go Backlog
here
• All about execution!

63. Roadmap
Discovery
Backlog
Push it live!

64. Roadmap
Discovery
Backlog
Measure!

65. 3
HOW WE DO
PRODUCT
DISCOVERY

66. Product Manager maintains
Roadmap in JIRA

67. Build
prototypes
and test with
users

70. <sidenote>
Recruit testers from existing
customers, new users and
“Customer Development
Program”
</sidenote>

71. Measur
e

72. Qualitative
&
Quantitative

75. based on
your learnings

76. When we are confident we
have a bunch of people that
will use/buy it…

77. write “fully baked” tickets and
put into backlog…

79. Otherwise park it or kill it

81. Ask yourself:

82. Ask yourself:
Who did you talk to?

83. Ask yourself:
Who did you talk to?
What have you learned?

84. Ask yourself:
Who did you talk to?
What have you learned?
Are they responding?

85. Ask yourself:
Who did you talk to?
What have you learned?
Are they responding?
Potential pivots?

86. Ask yourself:
Who did you talk to?
What have you learned?
Are they responding?
Potential pivots?
Can we get to MVP in 2
weeks?

87. 4
SUMMARY

88. Learn from other
people’s
experiences

89. Don’t build stuff
blindly

90. Test your ideas and
validate
assumptions with
users

91. Talk to users, talk to
users, talk to
users…

92. Your job is to figure
out what is
valuable, usable
and feasible

93. THANKS!
kwang@secondmarket.com
@sevin514
www.slideshare.net/sevin514
We’re hiring!
www.secondmarket.com/careers