The Accidental Product Manager
Home Of The Billion Dollar Product Manager Where You Too Can Learn To Be A Wildly Successful Product Manger
No, no, we’re not talking about being physically attractive here – although… What I’m really getting ready to talk about is the secret to how product manager who work in the rough-and-tumble economies of emerging markets survive in the long term. What’s their secret and how can we use it to survive the current recession? … Read more
A recession, like the one that we’re living though right now, changes everything. Product mangers who had everything set up and working just right have been surprised to discover that all of a sudden customers are canceling orders and have stopped placing new orders. What’s a product manger to do? Martin Roth and Richard Ettenson … Read more
Just image this scenario: you’re sitting there at “mid-sized company, Inc.” when one day your boss walks up to you and says “we’ve just been bought by really-big-company, Inc.” Ok, you say to yourself, how much of a big deal to my successful product can this be? Well one thing that you may not have … Read more
The Dow Jones Average plunges 700 points in a day. Then it rises 500 points the next day. Your best customer just suddenly goes out of business one day (Enron, Lehman Brothers, Circuit City, etc.). Sure seems like no Product Manger could ever learn to deal with the worst economy in a generation… Wrong! Our … Read more
As a product manager you know that you should be using shiny new Web 2.0 stuff to market your product. However, the sticky question is what exactly should you be using and, oh by the way, just how should you be using it? Traditional marketing has always been pretty much a one-way street – you … Read more
Times are tough. Your product, your baby, is struggling. New competitors are showing up in your market with lower cost alternatives. Try as you might, your sales teams are just not having any luck convincing your customers to shell out the extra bucks for your Cadillac product. What’s a product manger to do? Lots of … Read more
I was working with a client the other day who had a unique problem: they needed a vision for their product. Now, I’m pretty familiar with the whole “vision” thing as it applies to a company – it’s that thing that you put on the wall that nobody ever reads. However, this was the first … Read more
Who has to deal with irrational customers – isn’t “irrational” just another word for “crazy”? If you’ve ever had to set a price for your product, then you know what I’m talking about. No matter what price you pick (or how you pick it) people are always going to be telling you that it’s the … Read more
Oh man , do I have a story for you. How many times have we been in charge of a product when “higher powers” have come along with suggestions on how to make the product better? Or perhaps they suggest features that the product just must have before it goes out the door? These types … Read more
As product managers we are generally quite proud of our products. We do our best to work with potential customers and collect requirements. We ride herd over our developers to make sure that a good product is developed and that it rolls out smoothly. What happens if there is then a flaw in how the … Read more