Slides Cindy Solomon recently used in his discussion w/ mentees of The Product Mentor. The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People. Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community. http://TheProductMentor.com

1. Creating Community For
Product Unknown
by Cindy F. Solomon
June 18, 2014
© Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com

2. Cindy F. Solomon, CPM, CPMM
© Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
•Host, Global Product Management Talk
•Founder, Startup Product Movement for Product Excellence
•Contributing author: ProdBOK, Product Management And Marketing Body of
Knowledge and 42 Rules Product Marketing Chapter #13 Emulate Twitter
•20 years software product marketing and management, web development,
services, consulting including Apple, Vadem, NetObjects and Startups in Silicon
Valley. www.linkedin.com/in/cfsolomon/

3. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Why create community
before the product is
known?

4. Increase Product Success
4

5. 70% Of Products Fail
• Didn’t meet market needs
• Unclear who the customer was
• Wasn’t viable
• Not competitive
• Costs too high to produce
• Need not urgent
• Customer unwilling to pay
• Not enough customers
• Incorrect pricing
• Not appropriate positioning
• Value not communicated
• Product not aligned with brand image
• Doesn’t meet expectations
• Built in obsolescence

6. 6
Building the wrong
product is expensive
& disastrous for the
product team &
company

7. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Why focus on
“community” rather
than “target market”?

8. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Aren’t customers more
important than
“community”?

9. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com

10. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Community is a
Two Way Street
• Requires less $ (marketing, advertising dollars)
• Grows loyalty
• Inspires trust
• Showcases real humans
• Encourages feedback
• Enables Deeper interactions

11. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Community Marketing Leaders
Nike, Starbucks
and Google

12. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Creating Future Community
Apple in education

13. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Before building product:
First find the
market.

14. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Before building product:
Find the desire.

15. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Before building product:
Sense the need
in the market.

16. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Customer Development
Process to discover
product/market fit

17. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
• What do they read? Specific magazines,
papers
• What events do they attend?
• Which social platforms?
• What devices?
If you don’t know, then how can you reach
them?
Identify Addressable Community

18. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Go out to the field
• Where are they
• What are they doing
• What do they care about
• What are they reading
• What devices do they use
• What platforms do they frequent

19. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Understand motivations
• How do they behave
• What drives their choices
• How do they solve their pains
• What do they pay for
• What do they value

20. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Walk in their shoes
• Observe them
• Eat with them
• Talk with them
• Live with them
• Care about them
• Find their current community

21. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
• Ask questions
• Feel from their perspective
• What is missing
• What can be improved
• What sucks
• What feeds their needs
Empathize

22. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
• Can you communicate what they value?
• Can you provide value to the existing
community?
• Can you reach them in sufficient numbers
above the noise?
• Why will they care about your product?
• Why will they change current behavior?
Assess

23. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Product marketing managers frame the
narrative of the product, idea, and potential
market
One sentence summary – elevator statement
Be consistent across all communications
What are you telling them?

24. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
• It reflects what has been learned from the
community
• In their words, language and context
• Focused on their WIIFM
Why Should They Believe

25. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Develop key relationships before you build the
product for trust, believability and champions
Key Relationships

26. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Before building product:
Establish relationships with
current community stars, i.e.
Bloggers, thought leaders, authors,
innovators, practitioners

27. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Before building product:
Give them platform to
be heard and then
Listen to them!

28. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Create Future Stars
• Create future community stars by
showcasing passionate contributors &
awarding their contributions
• Gamification, stickers, badges, discounts
• Even better: Thank you tweets, emails &
printed acknowledgement

29. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.comP
Find the loudmouths, early
adopters, people creating &
controlling the conversations, then
Get Inside The Conversations

30. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.comP
1. Identify key issues product touches
2. Become part of the conversation
3. Cultivate the influencers via follows & replies
4. Produce (or borrow) compelling content
5. Build a need in the marketplace
6. Launch a product that fills that need
7. Build on the community that contributed to
defining the product
Get Inside The Conversations

31. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
• Identify key issues product touches upon
• Where is conversation going on?
• Don’t create the conversation, join it and
forward the action with relevant, appropriate,
and generous contributions
Create Compelling Content

32. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
• Talk about things that already have interest
and give your personal experience
• What excites you?
• Headline with something that relates to you
– Use https://medium.com/ to post
– Share URL on scoop.it
Be Human

33. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
1. Be a nice guy that everyone likes
2. Build a product that everyone
likes
3. Market before you build the
product
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiten_Shah KissMetrics, Crazy Egg, Growth Hacking
The Hiten Shah Secret

34. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
“Timing, perseverance, and ten
years of trying will eventually
make you look like an overnight
success.”
Biz Stone, Twitter, founded 2006
Slowly Build Overnite Success

35. It Started with a Tweet

36. The Startup Product Mission
• Engage product professionals in regular, real-time discussion;
• Showcase experts, speakers, bloggers, thought leaders, practitioners and events
that forward product excellence;
• Evangelize Product related jobs;
• Raise important issues that all product professionals confront;
• Extend shared resources across industries and borders;
• Facilitate dialogue, networking, mentoring & support;
• Enable global community;
• Educate & defend the value of the product professional, cross-functional team
collaboration and holistic product view.

37. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Chris Yeh, PBWorks “Find the market
before you build the product.”
Sean Moffit, It Takes A Community to Build
A Brand
Startup Product & Global Product
Management Talk contributors, community
organizers, speakers and sponsors
Thanks to

38. © Cindy F. Solomon
cfsolomon@gmail.com
Thank you for sharing your precious time!
Please connect!
www.linkedin.com/in/cfsolomon/ @cindyfsolomon
Startup Product, movement for product excellence
http://startupproduct.com @startupproduct
Startup Product communities
Global Product Management Talk, weekly broadcast
@prodmgmttalk
Webcast Digest, daily curated online events
@WebcastDigest