Product Management: Launch

Question 1

Product Management Cycle

Answer 1

Product Definition
Product Design
Product Development
Product Launch

Question 2

Product Launch Process

Answer 2

1. Set up the process
   - Creating the launch process
   - Create a Scaling process
   - Identify and mitigate risks
2. Marketing Strategy
   - Why, What, When,Where,How
3. Prepare your partner Teams for launch
   - Partners: Sales, Support
   - Tranining
   - Collateral Materials
4. Launch and Post-Launch feedback
   - Launch Strategy and Timeline
   - Feedback
   - Launch email
   - A/B testing

Question 3

Key reasons product launches fail

Answer 3

A flawed process
The product doesn’t resonate with the user
Lack of Sales and Customer Support team training

Question 4

Key things to think about

Answer 4

Planning ahead is critical. The launch process should be set up before product development is complete.

Involve key partners Every launch is different but in most cases, you’ll want to engage with the engineering, testing teams, marketing, sales, privacy and legal.

Define your metrics before the launch This will give you time to design an effective feedback mechanism to measure the product’s success.

Question 5

When should you start the launch process?

Answer 5

While the product is still in development

Question 6

Launch Process

Answer 6

1. legal department: ensure compliance
2. Testing Team: ensure there are no bugs
3. Marketing department: create a buzz
4. Engineering Department: Ensure they are ready
5. Leadership: To Greenlight the project
6. Define Metrics
7. App Store Review

Question 7

Why is scaling important?

Answer 7

If a product doesn’t grow it dies

Question 8

What should you consider when scaling your app to other geographic regions?

Answer 8

Language
Culture
The market
Legal issues

Question 9

When considering scaling your app to other geographic regions, which regions should you scale to first

Answer 9

regions with the same/similar:

• language
• culture
• large number of users
• low cost

Question 10

What is a Rollback Plan

Answer 10

The plan you put together if you need to ”undo” your launch

Question 11

Go To Market Strategy

Answer 11

Go-to-Market Strategy: A detailed plan of actionable items, which describes how you will achieve your product goals, acquire users and deliver value through your product to your target user. This includes:

Pricing strategy- how you capture value

Channel strategy- how you distribute your product

Marketing campaigns- how you explain your product

Customer journey map- how customers learn about and interact with your product

Training for sales and support teams- how internal teams sell and help the user with the product

Question 12

Value Proposition

Answer 12

Value Proposition: Benefits that your product delivers to address your target user’s needs. Another way to think about it: your product’s value proposition answers the question why your target user would buy/use your product.

Question 13

Product Positioning

Answer 13

Product Positioning: Where your product fits in the market for your target audience(s) given the product’s value proposition. This can also highlight how your product is different compared to other products. You can have multiple product positioning statements

Question 14

Marketing Message

Answer 14

Marketing Message: A concise statement of the value your product delivers to users based on your product positioning. The marketing message should be easy for users to understand and convey what our product does.

Question 15

Product Positioning Statement

Answer 15

For {Target Audience}, {Product Name} delivers {Product Benefit} better than other products because {Evidence of Superiority}

Question 16

Different Pricing models

Answer 16

Ad Supported: The product is free, but it generates revenue from advertisers.

Cost-based pricing: The cost to produce the product is the base price and a mark-up is added.

Dynamic pricing : Price changes reflect changes in supply or demand, e.g. surge pricing.

Freemium: The basic product is free but you can purchase additional features or content, e.g. Dropbox.

Price discrimination: Different users are charged a different price for the same product, e.g. US airline tickets.

Value-based pricing: Price is based on the value the user gets from the product.

Question 17

Launch vs Landing

Answer 17

Launch vs. Landing: Your goal is not solely to launch, but to launch and then iterate to the next improvement (a.k.a. landing)

Question 18

Landing

Answer 18

Landing the Product: Landing the product means that you launched your product, monitored your metrics and did improvements based on the metrics and user’s feedback

Question 19

Immediate Release vs Gradual Rollout

Answer 19

Immediate Release: Launch the product to all the users at the same time.
Gradual Rollout: Launch the updated product to a small percentage of current users and slowly add more users.

Question 20

Who Should You Notify About Your Launch?

Answer 20

Leadership

Teams Working on the Product (Engineering, Testing, Legal etc.

Partner Teams for Launch (Marketing, Sales Customer Support, Technical Writers)

Question 21

benefits of a gradual rollout?

Answer 21

A gradual rollout is the safest choice for a software product:

Allows you to closely monitor performance metrics to identify issues and make any necessary fixes before launching to everyone.
Oftentimes you might run into bugs at scale that you could not catch or predict before rolling out

Gives you an early read if the product is on track to achieve goals

Easy to rollback the launch if any major issues arise

Question 22

When would you use a Full launch?

Answer 22

A full launch makes more sense for a:

Hardware product. Once a product is on the shelf it has to work for any user who purchases it. You can still do beta testing, but it will be more challenging to get a physical product to your target users. Additionally, you can’t just “push” a new feature to an existing physical product like you can with software since you are limited by the capabilities of the hardware.

“No-brainer” product. It is a low-risk launch if your team is confident that the product will be well-received in the market and will work as expected.

It also may make sense to do a full launch to meet a product goal or a legal requirement. There may be times when leadership decides that the need for immediate revenue is worth the risk of launching an imperfect product. Or changes in law, that require product updates for compliance, like GDPR privacy regulations in Europe.

Question 23

How to manage a Gradual Rollout

Answer 23

How to Manage a Gradual Rollout

For a new product, a gradual rollout involves launching the product to a small or geographically contained group of users

For a new feature on an existing product, you’ll want to make the feature available to a select group of users of the existing product.

You’ll want to be strategic about the number of users you start with. You need enough users to get a good read on the users’ reception of the project and to make sure any issues are uncovered. You will almost always want to start with 1% on the first day

After launch, monitor KPIs and user feedback
No issues -> release the product to more users.

If KPIs look problematic or issues appear in user feedback, halt the rollout or roll the feature back. Fix it and try again.

Question 24

Structure of an internal launch email

Answer 24

User story
Product description
Launch data
Next steps
Thank Yous

Question 25

What should be included in external launch email?

Answer 25

What Should be in an External Launch Email?
External emails should include much more marketing messaging about the product or feature and its value.

What the product or feature is
Why users should care/be excited about it

How users can use it

When users can expect it (if it’s not available immediately)
Where to go for more info/help