This document discusses how to maintain core product values at scale for a company. It recommends starting with a clear customer-centric vision and goals, and organizing around solving specific customer problems and behaviors rather than just the development organization. It also advises creating alignment and focus through rigorous prioritization to avoid pursuing all good ideas. Product teams should be empowered with customer-focused missions tied to company goals, and autonomous but aligned on strategic, tactical, and operational time horizons.

1. Maintaining Product
Values at Scale
—
Leo Nilsson

2. 2011 TODAY

3. 2011 TODAY

Leo
iZettle Employees

4. Along the way we encountered:
Confusion  Misalignment  Sub-
optimisation  Inertia…

5. …Despair

6. “Build what we sell!”
“Sell what we build!”
“So, What are we
building???”
“Wait, who exactly is
our customer?”
“Well, what does our
customer need?

7. For iZettle scaling core product
values was - and still is - a company
effort…

8. … And it required us to take a few
steps back
1
2
3
Start with a clear customer-centric vision and goals -
don’t stop at the vision statement or north-star goals
Organise around customer problems and core behaviours -
don’t leave it at the development organisation
Create alignment and focus through rigid prioritisation -
don't pursue all the good ideas

9. Set the vision and goals centrally
and be clear and specific about what
you are trying to achieve

10. Clearly define what problems to
solve for your customer
Payments for small businesses

11. Clearly define what problems to
solve for your customer
Payments for small businesses
Customer feedback and feature requests
User-behaviour (internal data)
Market intelligence (external data)

12. Clearly define what problems to
solve for your customer
Payments
Products
Customers
Channels

13. Do proper customer
segmentation
Business
Size
Vertical
Country
What can be grouped?
What is unique?

14. Study the segments’ high-level activity
cohorts
Months since registration
Activesas%ofregisteredusersinmonthY
25 %
50 %
75 %
100 %
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Activation
Short-term
Retention
Long-term
Retention

15. Map the playing field and agree
focus
BusinessSize
Verticals
Health
& Beauty
Retail Hospitality
Professional
Services
10 employees

16. Formalise long-term but clear
company goals (24-months)
SCALABLE GROWTH
IN CORE SEGMENTS
X% Y%
SHARE OF
MERCHANT SALES

17. Organise around what everyone
should care about - customer value =
business value

18. Build empowered Product Teams
with Customer Missions
Stakeholders
Cross-functional Team
(with all competencies)
Business Goal(s)



 
  
Team Mission
(e.g. “Never miss a sale”)


19. And how do you set Business Goals
for Product Teams?

20. Start at one of the Company
Goals and break it down
SCALABLE GROWTH
X%Company Goal
Goal Drivers
Team Drivers
Acquisition Activation Retention

21. Start at one of the Company
Goals and break it down
SHARE OF MERCHANT SALES
Y%Company Goal
Goal Drivers
Team Drivers
Sales Channel adoption Alternative Payments adoption

22. “Good users are using the product
library”
“Users of a certain profile retain X%
better if we teach them how to use
the product library”
Intuition
Anecdotes
Correlation
Causation
QUALITY OF DATA (ALL LEVELS RELEVANT AT VARIOUS STAGES)
QUALITY OF
HYPOTHESIS
Establish Team Hypotheses on how core
customer actions can contribute to the Goal
Drivers

23. Share of merchants that manage
their product data with iZettle



 
Share of merchants with a
Payments checkout-time below X
seconds



 

24. Establish Value Proposition
Streams
Tech
Product
Mgmt.
UX / Design Risk
Sales &
Marketing

25. Establish Value Proposition
Streams
Tech
Product
Mgmt.
UX / Design
Sales &
Marketing
Risk

26. Establish Value Proposition
Streams
Tech
Product
Mgmt.
UX / Design Risk
Sales &
Marketing


27. Establish Value Proposition
Streams
Tech
Product
Mgmt.
UX / Design Risk
Sales &
Marketing

Tech
Product
Mgmt.
UX / Design Risk
Sales &
Marketing

“Manage your sales”
“Grow your sales”
New customers
Active customers

28. “Loosely coupled, highly aligned”

29. Build autonomous teams but align
focus on three rolling time horizons
- and do not run after every good
idea or business case

30. STRATEGIC - NEXT 12 MONTHS

31. TACTICAL - NEXT 3 MONTHS

32. Stakeholders



 
  
 


DiscoveryTeam DeliveryTeam
OPERATIONAL - NEXT FORESEEABLE SPRINTS

33.   
 
VISION
GOALS
GOALS
Company Bets Big-room Planning
  
 
  
 
Aligned Teams
Context from
Leadership

34. Thank you!
Leo Nilsson