Getting to Product Market Fit QuicklySam McAfee @sammcafee

Tonight’s Agenda

Solving the Right Problem

Building Your Product Quickly

Managing Competition

Q & A

About me…Started making software in 1999/2000. Survived the Dot-Com crash.

Lots of consulting + “actual experience” ;-)

Early adopter of Agile, Kanban, and Lean

Currently CTO at POPVOX

Writing a book about startup patterns.

Product Market Fit

Product Market Fit

Solve a really painful problem for a real customer.

Do it as fast as humanly possible.

Make it difficult for anyone to catch up with you.

A brief word on product strategy…

Solving the Right Problem

Solving the Right Problem

Understand the customer using personas.

Conduct problem interviews.

Conduct solution interviews.

Iterate, as needed.

Customer PersonasLightweight personas capture your assumptions about customer behavior, goals, and demographics.

Persona Tips

Use paper and sharpies.

Always include a sketch.

Don’t model real people.

Demographics should inform behaviors.

Behaviors should inform problems.

Problem InterviewsValidate that the customer has the problems you think they do. And find ones you didn’t think of!

Problem Interview TipsBe nice and friendly.

You’re not selling something. Call it research.

Listen more than you talk.

Have someone else take notes for you.

Say, “tell me more about that” when you hear something interesting.

Count things to add up later.

Solution InterviewsDon’t combine with problem interviews.

Use the lowest fidelity solution possible. Start with your face, then paper, then maybe software.

Don’t tell them how to use your solution. Give them a scenario. Then observe and listen.

This is a test of your idea! Not your actual product. Don’t get caught up in the details.

Get their email address for later.

Solving the Right Problem

Understand the customer using personas. √

Conduct problem interviews. √

Conduct solution interviews. √

Iterate, as needed. √

Building Products Quickly

Building Products Quickly

Define the work with user stories.

Visualize the work with a Kanban system.

Use cross-functional, dedicated, co-located teams.

Optimize time and space.

User Stories

Simple format.

Include lo-fi visuals.

Definition of “done”.

Don’t make user stories too detailed.

Rely instead on frequent communication.

Avoid high-fidelity mock-ups.

Use a design framework and sketches instead.

“Definition of done” criteria for user stories should be testable with automation, wherever possible.

Kanban Systems

It’s all about flow.

Model current process.

Visualize all the work.

Limit work-in-progress.

Measure cycle time.

The Kanban board is always a work in progress.

It should be designed by the team doing the work, and modified as needed.

If you don’t measure your cycle time, you cannot see if your team is improving.

Limiting work-in-progress reduces your batch size.

It is the best way to increase your cycle time.

Stop measuring individual productivity.

Watch the work, not the worker.

Cross-functional Teams

Everyone sits together.

Work on a few related things at a time. Together.

Reduce the number of hand-offs between functions.

Separating design work from development work creates larger batches.

Larger batches increase cycle time.

Working on too many stories at the same time increases the number of dependencies.

More dependencies increases cycle time.

Hand-offs between work functions results in longer queues of unfinished work.

Longer queues increases cycle time.

Optimize Space and Time

No substitute for co-location (sorry, Slack!)

Co-location builds trust.

Remote work should respect Conway’s Law.

Co-location reduces the number and frequency of meetings required to coordinate work.

Fewer meetings decreases cycle time.

Working in the same physical space results in casual, social behaviors that build trust.

Trust helps teams move faster. Trust also helps reduce turnover.

Remote teams requires more communication, and results in slower feedback loops.

Slower feedback loops increase cycle time.

Building Products Quickly

Define the work with user stories. √

Visualize the work with a Kanban system. √

Use cross-functional, dedicated, co-located teams. √

Optimize time and space. √

Managing Competition

Managing Competition

Don’t worry too much, or too little, about competition.

If there is no competition, you’re probably in trouble.

Competition helps you focus.

Worry Just Enough

Competition means there is an actual business problem, and someone is already solving it.

Don’t bend your whole strategy around what others are doing. Use your vision.

Use WIP limits for your competitive strategy, too. You can’t build everything for everyone.

Understand the CompetitionYour problem interviews tell you how customers solve their problem now. That is your competition.

There is always competition or there is no business.

Do not compete with everyone. Integration can be a great distribution strategy.

You should only compete on features that are in alignment with your product strategy.

How Competition Helps

Understand your customer better.

Differentiate your solution.

Clarify your long-term strategy.

Prioritize your work according to your strategy.

Product Market Fit

Solve a really painful problem for a real customer. √

Do it as fast as humanly possible. √

Make it difficult for anyone to catch up with you. √

Thank You!