consumer internet lessons for enterprise product managers

Consumer Product Lessons ��for Enterprise PMs

©2014 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved. 1

NASSCOM Product Conclave

Michael Korcuska Vice President, Product Management

LinkedIn

October 31, 2014

Beyond the obvious

Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and

successful

Our mission

Member metricsQ

1’12

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332

313

296

277

259

238

218

202187

174161

Members (mn)

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12

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12

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12

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90

8482

7678

75

65

58

525150

Unique visiting members (mn)

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12

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12

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28

2526

222221

18

15

131211

Member page views (bn)

1 as of quarter end | 2 monthly average during the quarter | 3 total during the quarter 4

1 2 3

Revenue

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$568$534

$473$447

$393$364

$325$304

$252$228

$188$168

$139$121

$94

% Y/YNet revenue ($mn)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

140%

160%

6

Strong Product Management Culture: Alumni


CEO and VP Product

CEO

SVP Product

EIR

VP Product

VP Product

VP Product

Chief Product Officer

Product Director

SVP Product

VP Product

Enterprise Software Stinks


Why? Buyer ≠ User


Consumer Software: ��User is the buyer

In the Consumer world…

You are the user. Your teammates are users. This is fantastic!



Actually, it’s a minefield

Your boss is the user. The CEO is the user. Your mother is a user. Everyone knows why your product stinks.

This is a giant pain.


Beyond the obvious


Responsibilities

Metrics

Culture

Practices


Differences

Responsibilities

©2013 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

13

You are unlikely to be involved in pricing. Heck, your product may not make money. You won’t be preparing the sales team to sell the next release. No customer dinners.

Metrics

You cannot measure success by revenue/profit.

So much for that MBA.

Culture

No formal signoffs from 6 VPs. Please launch faster.

Optimized for speed and team independence.

Consumer Product Practices

©2013 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Practice 1: Data Guided (not driven) 17

Practice #1: Data Guided (not driven)

§  A/B Testing is hard in enterprise software –  You need to do it. –  You need to be clear with your customers that this is good for them.

§  A/B Testing at a different level –  Many variations in a single test. Hundreds of tests. Many test

interactions. What about long term effects? –  You better hire yourself a PhD statistician. Really.

§  Finding the right metric –  User value. Value to company. Short term versus long term. –  Example: New User Signups

§  Voice of Member –  You need to get the Voice of the Member into the conversation –  How do you find a clean signal with 330 million members?


Practice #2: Swim In Rivers 19

Swim in Rivers

§  Distribution is key –  Nobody is going to make your users log in. –  Be where the user already is.

§  Rivers to think about –  Email. Lots of noise here. –  SEO. Takes a big investment to get it right. –  Search. You want to appear here. –  Home Page. Can you be on the user’s home page? –  Mobile Deck. This is the new home page.

§  Virality –  Not every product is naturally viral. But every product should ask this

question: How will users share their experience with others? –  Also, cycle time matters. Google “Adam Nash virality” for details.


Practice #3: Immediate User Value

Immediate User Value

§  Don’t ask for information you’re not going to use to improve the user’s life

–  LinkedIn Example: Date of Birth –  Useful to LinkedIn for advertising –  But what can we provide to the user that’s valuable?

§  Make sure you can deliver the reward quickly

–  Ideally on the next page §  Show rather than tell

–  Demonstrate to the user why the information matters, don’t just tell them that it does

§  Find indirect ways to get information –  Adding University delivers immediate value to LinkedIn users. –  Does a pretty good job of approximating age.


Practice #4: What’s the Asset?

Practice #4: What’s the Asset?

§  In addition to user engagement and revenue, great consumer products also build an asset.

–  That asses is valuable by itself –  But ideally it also increases the width of the moat

§  A set of data that:

–  Improves the user experience –  Increases your competitive advantage –  Can be (carefully) monetized

§  Enterprise software companies realize this eventually –  You should try to build it in from the beginning –  SaaS helps this tremendously


Critical ��mass ��

of data

Valuable products ��

Technology platform

Member growth and engagement

Final Difference


Final Difference


Enterprise PM Consumer PM

Questions?

29

Photo credits: Thanks to Creative Commons!

§  Stinky feet: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hantlas/25861420 §  Woman smelling flower:

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=15616&picture=woman-smelling-flowers

§  Minefield: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DANGER_MINES.jpg §  Thumbs down: https://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/2191404675/ §  Lego binoculars: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kalexanderson/5696097036/ §  Price tag: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Price_Tag_99%2BTX_99_cents_%2B_tax.jpg §  Approve: https://www.flickr.com/photos/didmyself/7568581920/ §  River: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilsingapore/12371587994/ §  Maze: https://www.flickr.com/photos/golbenge/5400710724 §  Palace/Moat: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesjustin/2852529200


consumer internet lessons for enterprise product managers

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