This document describes a presentation by Prachi Wadekar on using betas as a product launch strategy. The presentation covers: - When to launch alphas to test internally and betas to test externally with select customers. Betas are meant for getting feedback to avoid major changes before general launch. - How to select beta customers, such as early adopters, and incentivize their participation with perks like free access to the full product after launch. - The importance of supporting beta customers, tracking feedback across multiple channels, and moving fast to address issues in order to learn from the beta process. - Metrics to measure during the beta to understand outcomes, benchmarks for deciding when the product is ready for general availability launch, and

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Betas: A Winning Product Launch
Strategy by Mixpanel PM

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10. Prachi Wadekar
T O N I G H T ’ S S P E A K E R

11. Betas: A winning
product launch strategy
Prachi Wadekar
Product Management at Mixpanel
11

12. ● Not an accidental Product Manager!
● Graduated from Carnegie Mellon University
● Started career as an Analyst at BlackRock
● Moved to Lendup
● Now a Product Manager at Mixpanel on our Data
Team
12
About me
Twitter
@wadekarprachi
Linkedin:
www.linkedin.com/in/prachi-wadekar

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“Leaders start with the customer and work backwards.
They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust.
Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they
obsess over customers.”
- Amazon’s Customer Obsession Principle

14. ● A Product Manager’s goal should be
to focus on customer needs
● What great PMs do?
○ Create opportunities that solve
customer problems
■ Listen to their customers and
gather feedback
■ Respond to the feedback
■ Measure outcomes
■ Iterate!
14
Stay customer obsessed
Data
Patterns
Causes
GoalsTests

15. Use data to find
dissatisfied customers
Metrics, Funnels, Cohorts and more
15
Looking for customer problems
Review product gaps Talk to customers
1 2 3

16. Launch Great Products
16

17. 17
Flawless like SpaceX

18. ● Then (pre digital revolution)
○ Product development largely driven by internal stakeholders such
as senior management, engineers, project managers and QA
○ Longer launch cycles
● Now (post digital revolution)
○ Product development is largely driven by the customer
○ Launch cycles are shorter, more iterative and much faster
18
Evolution of the product launch process

19. ● Ready for internal testing
● Minimum Viable Product
● Unsure if you’re approaching
the customer problem with the
right approach?
19
When to
launch an
Alpha

20. ● Ready for external testing
○ Known gaps and bugs
● PM is confident product will not
radically change
● Typically customers can opt-out
of a beta
20
When to
launch an
Beta

21. ● Who are beta customers?
○ Early adopters of your products
○ Play with your products in their early stages
● Customers can self nominate
● PMs can build a generic pool of beta testers
● Ensure you cover every type of user or persona
21
How to pick customers for Beta

22. ● Incentives are required when
○ You aren’t offering value to customers
○ You aren’t listening to customers
● How we thank our Beta testers
○ Offer the product at no cost when we launch
○ Opportunity to be in the internal advisory
board for future product development
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Incentivizing your beta customers

23. How we do this at Mixpanel?
○ Customer Success Managers and Account Executives nominate
customers for research calls and actual betas
● Use betas to close deals
● Helps build customers relationships
● Give early access to high value customers
○ PMs reach out to customers who report product gaps
○ We also post on Mixpanel Community forum
Internal tools to whitelist new features for beta testers
23
Beta how-to

24. Private beta
○ Give access to a restricted audience (AKA “closed beta”)
○ By invitation only
○ Smaller sample size >> Qualitative feedback
Public beta
○ Open to all customers (AKA “open beta”)
○ Anyone who has access to the product, can access the new feature
○ Larger sample size >> Quantitative feedback
24
Private vs. Public Beta

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Invite customers

26. 1. What’s a beta not about?
i. Releasing poor quality software
2. Not an excuse to ship a substandard product
3. Administration overhead
26
Beware!

27. 1. Helping your customer
navigate a new product/feature
2. Who owns this?
• Product Managers
• Designers
• Engineers
• Support
3. Establish feedback channels
• Direct access
• Fast solutions
• Customer empathy!
4. Keep internal training limited
27
Support during Beta

28. Staying data informed through your beta
○ Pick your goal
○ Pick metrics that tie back to your goal and measure
○ Leverage user behavior tools to track metrics
○ Talk to your beta testers
○ Keep track of any customer reported bugs
○ Move fast!
28
Measure outcomes

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Measure outcomes

30. ● Have a clear exit strategy
○ Define milestones
● Beta label can stay anywhere
between 4-5 weeks
● When product solves customer
problem remove the label
○ Feedback
○ Product intuition + gut
● Rollback the product otherwise
30
Going off Beta

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You’re ready to ship!
Launch Checklist
○ Press release
○ Product update email
○ Social media posts
○ Messaging & positioning for sales
○ Tracking plan and success metrics
○ Pricing updates
○ Training for internal staff
○ Targeted outreach to influencers
○ Blog post
○ FAQ/Release notes/Help center
○ All hands demo

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And you just
GA-ed your
product!

33. ● After a product launches
○ Retrospect
○ Maintain the product
○ Collect customer feedback
○ Plan the next phase
33
What’s Next?

34. 1. Stay customer focussed
2. Pick a customer problem
3. Create value by launching a great product
1. Move to the next customer problem
34
Summary
● Alpha + Beta releases
● Learn, act and iterate
● Land on problem-solution fit
● GA your product

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“Achieving product/market fit requires at least
40% of users saying they would be “very
disappointed” without your product.”
- Sean Ellis (GrowthHackers.com)
#FOODFORTHOUGHT

36. Thank you

37. www.productschool.com
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