• How important is your product?: The Vitamin vs. Painkiller Concept

    How important is your product?: The Vitamin vs. Painkiller Concept

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    Like most phone users, I utilize apps on a daily basis to keep myself productive and engaged. These apps range in function from social media and messaging to news outlets. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to learn French. I knew very little of the language and needed to start from scratch. I’d heard…

  • The Startup Challenge: “Where to Start?”

    The Startup Challenge: “Where to Start?”

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    Naturally, you have an idea. Unfortunately, an idea alone isn’t typically worth much.  Merely having an idea does not make you a business owner, nor does it automatically turn into a viable product business. The challenge of turning a great idea into a profitable product business has tormented entrepreneurs for as long as there have…

  • Improve Your Team’s Communication with the Productivity Tool Slack

    Improve Your Team’s Communication with the Productivity Tool Slack

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    Stephen is a seasoned entrepreneur who had an idea for an app that would not only help his own business, but that he would also be able to sell to other businesses. He had the funding lined up, and then did his due diligence in putting a team together to create the application. He hired…

  • Why You Need To Hire a Product Manager Before You Pick a Dev Shop

    Why You Need To Hire a Product Manager Before You Pick a Dev Shop

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    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – building a successful product is difficult.  Even before you reach proper problem/solution fit, there are many obstacles to clear on the road to product success.  Eventually, you will be building something and often companies choose to outsource their development efforts to engineering firms aka dev…

  • 5 Excellent Questions Product Managers Should Ask Customers (Updated with 5 More)

    5 Excellent Questions Product Managers Should Ask Customers (Updated with 5 More)

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    Updated as of November 24th, 2019 Dear reader, every now and then a blog article of mine will blow up.  This happens to be one of those articles. First, I want to thank you for reading and if you’d like more help with topics like these please reach out to me using the links at…

  • So You Think You Can Scale?

    So You Think You Can Scale?

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    Everyone thinks their product is ready to scale, but few are truly ready.  I’ve been on my fair share of teams scrambling during the 11th hour for something that should have been done weeks ago.  Scaling is no joke.  Building a product that is ready for the masses takes a lot of planning and testing. …

  • 7 Tips to Start Communicating More Effectively with Techies

    7 Tips to Start Communicating More Effectively with Techies

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    I’ve spent many years in dedicated technical roles and dedicated business roles.  One of the biggest challenges facing productivity of an organization that employs both is communication.  Communication between business and tech is unfortunately often avoided because neither one seems to know much about the other.  Additionally, when attempts are made, information is often lost…

  • Prioritize Your Product Features Through Differentiation

    Prioritize Your Product Features Through Differentiation

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    Prioritizing product features is a key responsibility of a product manager.  Knowing what to prioritize and, more importantly, when can make all the difference for the success of your product.  Once your architecture is decided and built, you need to progress into building product features. Your team needs to not only build the right features,…

  • 8 Ways To Keep Your Product Development Team Motivated

    8 Ways To Keep Your Product Development Team Motivated

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    As working environments continue to become more flexible the size and shape of our product development teams seem to be constantly changing.  The good news is that regardless of those concerns what matters most is the productivity of your team.  For many businesses today, your product is your business and motivating your product development team…

  • Stop Missing Deadlines

    Stop Missing Deadlines

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    As a product manager, I’m very process oriented.  As a result, I’m borderline obsessed with efficiency.  If there is a way to save me time, I’m all over it.  Every product manager’s nightmare starts out with missed deadlines and only gets worse from there.  While you may not know much about my area of expertise…