Book Byte #284 "Escaping the Build Trap" by Melissa Perri

How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value

📣 Curious Quotes from the Author

“When companies do not understand their customers’ or users’ problems well, they cannot possibly define value for them. Instead of doing the work to learn this information about customers, they create a proxy that is easy to measure. “Value” becomes the quantity of features that are delivered, and, as a result, the number of features shipped becomes the primary metric of success.”

“Strategy is a deployable decision-making framework, enabling action to achieve desired outcomes, constrained by current capabilities, coherently aligned to the existing context.”

“Kill the bad ideas before they take up too much time and energy from the teams and before you get hooked on them. Instead, fall in love with the problem you are solving.”

“What was the last product you decided to kill?”

“Marquetly realized that, in order to grow its revenue to the numbers it needed, it should focus on expanding upmarket, selling to larger companies (enterprises),”

“Acquire more individual users. Retain existing individual users better. Create new revenue streams for existing individual users.”

“After we have set the goal, we begin walking through the Product Kata. We ask ourselves the following: What is the goal? Where are we now in relation to that goal? What is the biggest problem or obstacle standing in the way of me reaching that goal? How do I try to solve that problem? What do I expect to happen (hypothesis)? What actually happened, and what did we learn?”

“Giff Constable wrote an entire book, called Talking to Humans, that can walk you through how to do just that.”

“Companies often confuse the building to learn and building to earn.”

“There are many ways to experiment to learn. Concierge, Wizard of Oz, and concept testing are three examples of solution experiments, each of which I explain shortly.”

“The product roadmap should be updated constantly, especially at the team levels. This is why, at Produx Labs, we call them Living Roadmaps.”

“Consulting also taught me that one of the quickest ways to kill the spirit of a great employee is to put them in an environment where they can’t succeed. That’s when most people leave.”

📚 Cognition of the Book’s Big Idea

Organizations that only concentrate on releasing features risk falling into the "build trap," where their time and money don't produce results that are worth mentioning. Teams must change their perspective from focusing on outputs to providing genuine value that satisfies client demands and advances corporate objectives if they are to succeed. The Product Cutter encourages constant experimentation, learning, and iteration, providing a useful framework for implementing this change. Product managers may assist their teams in solving practical issues, making data-driven choices, and coordinating strategy with customer-focused results by using this methodical approach.

In the end, developing a product-led organization using these strategies propels long-term success and steady growth for any company.

▶ Collaborative Video of the Day

Until Tomorrow,
Jason (Founder Club255)