The 7 Toughest Challenges to Building Successful Products and Companies and how to Overcome Them by Chris Kocher @ Silicon Valley Product Camp 2012

1. Chris Kocher
March 24, 2012

2. Background
Chris Kocher kocher@greyheron.com
 Managing Director of Grey Heron
 Consulted and advised over 100 companies
 3 Years VP General Manager at Symantec
 10 years in Product Management at HP
 280 Group Product Management/Marketing
Training in San Francisco

3. 1. “If you don’t know where you’re
going, any road will take you there”
Challenges- Symptoms Solutions
 No real customer focus  Identify personas
 Solution in search of a  Define use cases
problem  Focus on customer
 Technology/feature- issues – not yours
driven  Segment, segment,
 Internal vs. customer segment
focus

4. 2. Never mistake a clear view for a
short distance - Paul Saffo
Challenges- Symptoms Solutions
 Market immaturity- timing  Think about market
 Never underestimate readiness stages
inertia  4 Es
 ‘Doing nothing’ may be  Ecosystem
your biggest competition  Education
 Evolution
 Social issues – not
 Evangelism
technology - are often
the biggest barriers to
adoption

5. 3. There is no substitute for a
coherent value delivery system
Challenges- Symptoms Solutions
 Unclear value proposition  Focus on 2-3 things – not
 Undefined value delivery 10
system  Website and Support – test
yourself
 Incomplete Product-
 Whole product solution –
Experience ecosystems and support
 iPhone vs. Android
 PM and PMM role to
 People don’t buy incomplete ensure coherent product
solutions strategy
 Are you a whole product or
an aftermarket item

6. 4. Nothing happens til someone sells
something –Thomas Watson (IBM)
Challenges- Symptoms Solutions
 Disconnect between  Understand how
customer and channels buyer/user goes through
 Poor channel strategy purchase process
 Misunderstood sales  Distribution is one of the
process/cycle toughest variables to
 B2C vs B2B group buying change
 Putting in SF.com doesn't  Find a champion
mean you have a sales
process  Build mktg. programs to
help move people through
the sales process

7. 5. Start-ups often die of over-
indulgence - not starvation
Challenges- Symptoms Solutions
 Trying to do too many  Minimum viable product MVP,
for starters
things
 Trying to be all things to
 Stay focused on critical
requirements, hone them,
all people don’t just do new things
 On the ‘feature treadmill’  Frequency and reinforcement
not just “newness”
 Kill products early- there is
always more to do
 Do fewer things , well

8. 6. We must all hang together or… we will
all hang separately – Ben Franklin
Challenges- Symptoms Solutions
 Disparate visions of  Continuous
objectives and success communication
 Sales, Marketing, QA,  Continual strategy,
Engineering, product and business
updates
 Buy-in to common view
from mgmt, investors,  ‘One view’ of a swing…
partners, stakeholders…

9. A Single View of the Product
Customer Designer Manufacturing
Documentation Sales CEO
Thanks to www.proejectcartoon.com for the images

10. 7. Ah but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now- Bob Dylan
Challenges- Symptoms Solutions
 Never a perfect world  Refine, Redo, Retool,
Resource, Restart – Pivot
 Stuff happens
 Learn fast and fail fast
 Cleaning up other
people’s messes  The emperors’ new clothes
 It may not be pretty, but  Sometimes you just aren’t
‘you gotta do what you going to change it
gotta do’
 When all else fails- bail –
leaving is learning- not
failure

11. For Further Discussion
Chris Kocher
kocher@greyheron.com
www.greyheron.com