Be a Great Product Leader
Adam Nash
HBS Entrepreneurship Conference
March 4, 2012

Optimus Prime
“Fate rarely calls upon us
at a moment of our
choosing”

Full Circle:
World-Class Product
Original meeting with Reid Hoffman turned in a four
hour conversation on what world class product meant
in a Web 2.0 world (circa 2007).
Most people start or join new companies because they
think “we can do it better this time”. They come to build
a company.
These are the top lessons I’ve personally gained over
the past decade about product management for the
modern consumer web.

Bottoms Up, Not Top Down
It’s ironic, but most people who make their living
building distributed systems revert to centralized control
when it comes to organizations.
In an incredibly detailed & fast-paced market, the
people closest to the metrics & issue are best suited to
make both tactical and strategic calls.
Management responsibility is a combination of
harmonizing the definition of success, traffic control,
and portfolio allocation.
1

Optimize Around Talent
Our most important asset is our people.
The key is not just to attract and retain the best talent,
but also to set up organization and process where they
can do their best work.
There can be endless philosophical and political
debates possible about organization and process.
Example: Web Development
2

Put People Directly on High
Priority Goals (or Problems)
This may sound obvious, but it continues to be very
rare in practice. Diffuse responsibility is a killer.
It’s an expensive solution, but when you’ve identified
the few goals that matter, it’s exactly the right answer.
A small, cross-functional team, free to execute with
clear, direct goals and authority is an incredibly
powerful force.
Example: Growth
3

What Do We Demand of
Product Managers?
Strategy
How do we win the game, and how do we keep score?
Prioritization
What are the steps from here to there, and what order
do we do them in?
Execution
For this phase, what’s the list of what has to get done,
and are we on track?
4

Product: Results Matter
In the end, we judge product managers by whether they “win
games”
The role itself can give limited authority. Like a new coach,
the team will let you define the plays initially. But in the end,
you have to show the team wins.
Product leaders don’t play the game, but they are judged by
the record of their products.
They cover any gaps. No excuses.
Responsibility, often without authority
5

Prioritization: Three Buckets
Metrics Movers
These pay the bills. In the end, software that doesn’t
justify itself will lose the ability to fund itself.
Customer Requests
If you don’t listen to customers, they will lose faith in you
and eventually hate you.
Delight
If you don’t delight customers, you won’t inspire
passion and loyalty in your users.
6

Can’t I Have All Three?
It’s not impossible, but it’s extremely rare.
Very often, metrics movers are not requested or delightful.
Very often, customer requests will not move your metrics
or delight people.
Very often, delight features will not move your metrics,
and by definition, are not requested.
Great products, however, combine all three. In agile
processes, releases intersperse all three regularly.
6

Understanding Virality
One of the key insights of our growth strategy from 2008. Extensible to
literally all engagement features.
Key measure used by applications on social platforms. This is an
extremely useful frame.
Two questions: what features let members touch non members? How
does a new customer today lead to a new customer tomorrow?
At the heart of virality is an exponential based on branching factor and
time. In an m^n equation, m is the branching factor, n is the cycles in a
time period.
Rabbits make lots of rabbits not because of big litters, but because they
breed frequently. “n” matters more
than “m”.
7

Engagement Can Be
Measured
Believe it or not, this issue has been hotly debated
Key metrics include:
MAU / Total User Base
DAU / MAU
PV / DAU
Don’t be afraid to learn from startups and/or
competitors. You are not always a unique snowflake.
8

Find the Heat
There are two sides to boosting engagement: lowering the friction
of reaching out, and increasing the desire to engage.
It’s easy to focus on the first and ignore the second, but social
software depends on capturing the real nuances of human
interaction.
Heat is a placeholder term for emotions that drive action, both
positive and negative.
Ask yourself the hard questions of what strong emotions drive the
actions in your products.
Examples: Polls 2.0, Apply with LinkedIn
9

Simple is Hard
For some reason, people are talking a lot about Steve
Jobs these days. Inevitably this concept comes up.
It’s true in design, it’s true in metrics, it’s true in
prioritization, and it’s true in strategy.
What’s the one thing you want the user to do?
What’s the fundamental use case your feature
addresses for users?
Example: Mobile First design
10

Final Thoughts
We can be our own harshest critics. In the mirror we
see every flaw, every mistake, every imperfection.
These are the very early years. Things that seem small
now can and will be huge in 5 years. Each of you can
and will have a profound impact on that future.
Behavior matters. Values matter.
Be a Great Product Leader.

Optimus Prime
“There’s a thin line between
being a hero and being a
memory.”