1.
The Art of Product Management by
23andMe Senior Product Manager
www.productschool.com

2.
FREE INVITE
Join 16,000+ Product Managers on
productschool.com/slack-community

3.
Product
Management
2-month part-time
Courses

4.
Coding
for Managers
2-month part-time
Courses

5.
Data Analytics
for Managers
2-month part-time
Courses

6.
Include @productschool and #prodmgmt at the
end of your tweet
Tweet to get a free ticket
for our next Event!

7.
Venkatesh Balan

8.
About Me
Senior Product Manager at 23andMe
● International launch in EU (DN, SE, FI, IE, NE)
● E-commerce store, payment systems
● Channel expansion to Retail (Physical, online, pop-up)
● Registration and account creation
Almost 20 years in the Technology industry worked in
● Several companies - realtor.com, consulting for Apple / Toyota, PwC, couple of
start-ups
● Worked through many roles - software engineer, team lead, project manager,
program manager and now as product manager

9.
Agenda
● What is product management and what does a product manager do?
● Strategy
● Understanding the customer
● Design
● KPIs and Metrics

10.
T-shaped profile
http://www.romanpichler.com/blog/the-t-shaped-product-manager/

11.
Generic, Transferable skills
● Effectively capturing the product’s value proposition
● Segmenting the market
● Validating product strategy assumptions
● Selecting the right KPIs
● Prioritising the product backlog
● Analysing user feedback and data
● Analytics using either GA or MixPanel or any tool

12.
Product specific skills
● Intimate knowledge of the industry / domain / product
● Deep understanding of the product or similar products in the industry
○ Value proposition
○ Key features
○ User journey
○ Business goals and KPIs
● Can be developed by speaking to the customers periodically, dogfooding the
product, understanding the competition etc.

13.
Strategy
● Mission - Why we exist
● Vision - Where we want to go
● Values - What we stand for
○ Core tenets to follow to achieve the vision and the mission
● Strategy - How we get there
○ Big picture / direction using the org’s resources, skills and competencies
to create unique competitive advantage

14.
Deliberate Strategy and Emergent Strategy
Deliberate strategy - Conscious and thoughtful organized
action that you think might work and start
Emergent strategy - Ideas or initiatives that emerge along
the way.
HBX Disruptive strategy by Clay Christensen

15.
Porter’s 5 Forces

16.
Tools
SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threat) Analysis
Cost Benefit Risk Analysis

17.
Understanding the Target Market and Customer
● Build something that customers want. Do not take “Build it
and customers will come” approach
● Who the customers are?
● What value the customers want? Job to be done
● How customers use the product?
● What is the customer behavior?
● How the product helps people to solve their unmet needs

18.
Market Research
Qualitative research
Ethnographic interviews
Be clear on what the goals are and what you expect to learn
Quantitative research

19.
What is
Design?

20.
“Most people make the mistake of thinking
design is what it looks like. People think it’s this
veneer—that the designers are handed this box
and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we
think design is.” —Steve Jobs

21.
“Design thinking is a human-centered approach
to innovation that draws from the designer’s
toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the
possibilities of technology, and the requirements
for business success.”
—Tim Brown, president and CEO, IDEO
What is Design Thinking?

22.
Dieter Rams Ten Principles of “Good Design”
● Good Design Is Innovative
● Good Design Makes a Product Useful
● Good Design Is Aesthetic
● Good Design Makes A Product Understandable
● Good Design Is Unobtrusive
● Good Design Is Honest
● Good Design Is Long-lasting
● Good Design Is Thorough Down to the Last Detail
● Good Design Is Environmentally Friendly
● Good Design Is as Little Design as Possible
Ten principles of “Good Design”

23.
Design Sprints

24.
Metrics
Right metrics to steer towards the right direction
Establish a North star metric - single metric that captures the core value of product
Key metric for Hotel industry - Revenue per available room
AirBnb - nights booked
Facebook - DAU
Common metrics
● MAU, DAU
● ARPU - Average Monthly Recurring Revenue Per User
● CPA (Cost per acquisition) or CAC (Customer Acquisition cost)
● LTV or CLV growth - Customer LifeTime Value
● Churn
● Engagement
● Retention
● NPS (Net Promoter Score)

25.
https://a16z.com/2016/03/07/all-about-network-effects/

26.
Thank You

27.
Part-time Product Management Courses in
San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles,
New York, Austin, Boston, Seattle, Chicago,
Denver, London, Toronto
www.productschool.com