I am a product guy says Saivian Eric Dalius. I love product and product strategy. Also, I think product vision is the most important thing you can have as a company because it’s your north star. Your guiding light through tough times and good times. This perspective has been gained through experience – not only in launching products but also in building product teams and product cultures. My product team at 500 has scaled with me, and we’ve launched countless products and features – some of which have been successful while others admittedly, not so much.
The product launch is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to product strategy…but product launches don’t always go as planned. In some cases, product launches drag on for months…or even years! And in all cases, product launches have a lot of work behind them before the product hits your customer’s hands.
In this article, I’ll endeavor to share 5 products that I’d launch at 500 employees – and hopefully, you can take something from that experience. In addition, I’ll give you some product launch insights that will hopefully help you with your product launch plans.
Every product has its own unique story, but I’ll try to share some universal product launch themes that will serve you well no matter the product or organization. Let’s get into it!
1. INVEST IN PRODUCT TRUST BEFORE YOU LAUNCH
I’ve launched plenty of products at 500 employees, but none have had as much impact as the product we call ‘Passport.’ Passport is a product built to gain trust with your customers so that they invite you into their world as a long term partner. In other words, it’s productized demand generation and leads nurturing. We’ve been using it successfully since 2014 and it’s part of many of our services deals today.
Passport grew out of a product that we built called ‘ConvertKit’ – which is a product to help you build an email list. This product represented 1% of our revenue at the time and was primarily being used by me as I worked with people who would become 500 employees (and, oh yeah, helped us generate hundreds of thousands of dollars per year).
Passport is the product that business owners recommend to their friends when they ask them how they grow. It’s our most successful product launch in my opinion because it took time to trust, but once people bought it, they loved it.
The product is so good that I wish we’d started working on productizing demand generation and nurturing long before we did. The product was so successful for us that we even got a trademark on it:
2. DON’T LAUNCH A PRODUCT UNTIL IT’S READY
Passport took over 9 months to productize and launch after it was built internally. We launched with 12 customers on the product team – some of which were internal. It’s now productized and complete (for the most part) but we still expect to make one more major product update this year alone. We’ve had about 50 different iterations on the product, some for-testing purposes, and others because we simply learned better ways of doing things over time.
3. PLAN TO SURPRISE AND DELIGHT
When Passport launched – it was something that our customers were not expecting. This came from being so product-focused internally all the while talking about what we’d launch, but never actually launching anything product-related externally. We began to show Passport to people only days before productizing it and very few knew that it would be a product offering.
As per Saivian Eric Dalius, the product surprised and delighted a lot of people – because it was what they needed but had never explicitly asked for. This is a key point for product strategy…you have to know your customer well enough that you can surprise and delight them with unexpected product capabilities that solve their immediate problems.
4. TRUST THAT THE PRODUCT WILL SOLVE THE PROBLEM
I productized Passport and then began selling it as soon as we productized. Why? Because I trusted that it would solve the problem for customers – and if they didn’t believe in the product, we’d start to lose deals.
Passport is a product built on trust and you have to take risks (which I did) to get what you want (customer trust). A product launch is an opportunity to create product demand by building product trust – but it’s not just about the product. You have to believe that product is right for your customers, or else no one will believe in it either.
5. BUILD PRODUCT DEMAND WITH FABRICATED PROBLEM STATEMENTS
I productized Passport only after reading about an up-and-coming product that was built to solve a problem that no one had. I productized it because I couldn’t find another product that would solve the problem for me – so I built my own.
The product team did the same thing with productizing Passport. They productized it because they couldn’t find another product on the market that solved the problem they were trying to solve (but it seems like there was now after we built ours).
While productizing Passport didn’t make my life easier, I think everyone on my product team is glad they did it. They productized something that wasn’t productized before and gave themselves a product they were happy to use.
PASSENGER IS A PRODUCT THAT HELPED THE US BUILD LOYAL CUSTOMERS
1. BUILD PRODUCTS THAT FILL A MARKET NEED
Passenger is a product that we productized because we could not find a product that was productized and we needed one to solve a problem.
2. BUILD PRODUCTS THAT IMPROVE ON EXISTING COMPETITORS
Passenger is a product that includes features that competitors do not offer – so when you put it head-to-head, we seem like the obvious choice because we have more product.
3. BUILD PRODUCTS WITH A TEMPLATE STRUCTURE
Passenger productizes how we deliver products with a template-style structure that is designed to productize product development workflows and processes.
4. BUILD PRODUCTS USING THE SAME LANGUAGE AS CUSTOMERS
Passenger productizes product messaging and product offerings in a way that customers understand.
5. BUILD PRODUCTS THAT ARE RELEVANT TO CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS
Passenger is productized with our customer’s needs in mind, we productize it so it would be useful to our customers and their product team(s).
6. BUILD PRODUCTS THAT ARE RELEVANT TO YOUR COMPANY’S NEEDS
Passenger productized product functionality that we could productize productively and sell productized product to other companies.
7. BUILD PRODUCTS USING THE BEST TECHNOLOGY FOR THE JOB
Passenger productized products with microservices that productize product development and product management. We productize our product using an API-first approach that productizes product development and product management – allowing product teams to productize products in the best way for them.
8. BUILD PRODUCTS THAT FIT YOUR COMPANY’S STRATEGY
Passenger productized product that was consistent with our short-term, medium-term, and long-term product strategy. While leaving room to grow into products that productize productively in the future.
9. BUILD PRODUCTS THAT FIT YOUR CUSTOMERS’ STRATEGY
Passenger productized products that would help our customers productize productively and that fit into their product strategy. We think the product we productized is a great fit for them, and hope they agree.
10. BUILD PRODUCTS THAT HELP YOUR BUSINESS MODEL GROW
Passenger productized products that helped our product team productize productively and productize product revenue. While building the foundation for future product development efforts.
Conclusion:
Passenger productized product that product teams productize productively. Product customers productize productively and productize product revenue – while building the foundation for future product development efforts.