Product Management's Sacred Seven: Product Design
Product Management's Sacred Seven
A great product manager has expertise in seven key areas:
- Product Design
- Economics
- Psychology
- Data Science
- User Experience (UX)
- Law & Policy
- Marketing & Growth
A standard PM is strong in 2-3 of these areas. An outstanding PM has a strong grasp of all seven.
Table Stakes for PMs
- Technical prowess
- Strong grasp of business strategy
- Soft skills, leadership ability, and vision
- Analytical skills and product sense
- A dash of entrepreneurial mojo
The Art of Great Product Design
Designing great products isn't just about UI, graphics, or feature lists—it’s about creating a holistic experience. A great PM should:
- Know what to build
- Test assumptions
- Get feedback quickly
- Ship something people love
0-to-1 Products: Finding Product-Market Fit
At this stage, you are searching for untapped supply. Your product must be 10x better than existing alternatives.
1-to-N Products: Scaling
Your roadmap should focus on:
- Delighting customers
- Creating hard-to-copy advantages
- Enhancing margins
Hard-to-Copy Advantages
| Advantage | Description |
|---|---|
| Strong brand | Customer trust and recognition |
| Network effects | More users increase value |
| Economies of scale | Lower costs with growth |
| Counter-positioning | Competitors can't or won't copy |
| Unique technology | Proprietary innovation |
| Switching costs | Hard for users to leave |
| Knowledge of processes | Expertise that's difficult to replicate |
| Captured resources | Patents, talent, exclusive deals |
Solving the Right Problem
- Start from the bottom-up—let users, not executives, drive product design.
- Find the pain: Solve high-dissatisfaction problems.
- Look for people willing to go through painful workarounds—they are desperate for a solution.
- Aim for 1,000 true fans who would be devastated if your product disappeared.
- Identify hidden assumptions in your ideas and validate them.
Key Implicit Assumptions
| Category | Assumption |
|---|---|
| Problem | I assume user group X has a problem with Y. |
| Solution | I assume X product category is the best way to solve this problem. |
| Feasibility | I assume this product can be built and that users will adopt it. |
| Team | I assume my team has the skills, reputation, and resources to build it. |
| Economics | I assume we can build a profitable business around it. |
Example: Square
| Category | Assumption |
|---|---|
| Problem | Small merchants lose sales because they can’t accept credit cards. |
| Solution | A credit card reader that plugs into a phone solves this issue. |
| Feasibility | A phone add-on can read credit cards; banks and customers will trust it. |
| Team | Dorsey has the funds and expertise to bootstrap the company. |
| Economics | The company can profit from these transactions. |
Researching User Needs
To build the right product, observe and talk to users:
- Day-in-the-life method: Follow real users to understand their context.
- Find users where they congregate:
- Forums/websites
- Twitter, LinkedIn, GitHub, Reddit, Mastodon
- Product Hunt, Hacker News
- Google Trends
- Discord communities
- Facebook groups
Research Methods
| Method | Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|---|
| Surveys | Good for testing problem assumptions | Poor for qualitative insights |
| Interviews | Reveal deep insights | Not great for quantitative data |
| Field Studies | Observe real behavior | Time-consuming |
| Focus Groups | Extract beliefs via discussions | Risk of groupthink |
| Diary Studies | Long-term insights | Requires participant discipline |
Always ask open-ended questions!
❌ "Would you order groceries through an app?"
✅ "What goes through your mind when deciding how to buy groceries?"
Prototyping & MVPs
Prototype Stages
- Post-it Prototype – Sketch flows on sticky notes
- Wireframe – Basic digital mockups
- Clickable Prototype – Interactive but non-functional
- MVP – The simplest testable version
MVP: The Most Misunderstood Concept
An MVP is not:
- A full-fledged launch
- A "version 1.0"
An MVP is:
- A testing vehicle
- A way to validate assumptions quickly
- A non-scalable experiment
Real MVP Examples
- Zappos: Took photos of mall shoes, put them online, and bought them when ordered.
- DoorDash: Founders personally picked up and delivered food.
- Airbnb: Validated demand by renting out their apartment air mattress.
- Zynga: Ran ads for fake games—only built games if ads got clicks.
Better term: RAT (Riskiest Assumption Test)
Fake Door Test
Create a landing page advertising a product, measure interest by signups/clicks before building.
Scaling 1-to-N Products
To ensure product success at scale, ask:
✅ Does this solution delight users?
✅ Is it hard to copy?
✅ Does it enhance margins?
Metric-Driven Experimentation
- Set quantitative or qualitative metric goals.
- Run A/B tests before full rollout.
Example
Hypothesis: Lyft users spend too long waiting at airport pickup points.
Experiment: Add "X minutes of walking time left" signs.
Metrics to measure:
✅ 30% increase in user-reported satisfaction
✅ 40% decrease in average wait times
✅ 10% increase in Lyft rides from airports
The Power of Reference Customers
- Work closely with a small set of representative users.
- Easier to build for a real user than a hypothetical one.
Launching the Right Way
🚀 You only get one chance at a first impression.
❌ Don’t launch an MVP to the world
✅ Launch a Minimum Lovable Product (MLP)
An MLP must have:
- Differentiating features
- Polished UX
Better to release fewer, high-quality features than many half-baked ones.
The MLP Formula
"If you had to describe this product in one sentence at a noisy bar, what would you say?"
Creating "Wow" Moments
- Uber: "Summon a black car with one tap."
- Duolingo: "Learn Klingon."
An MLP transcends being a tool—it becomes a magical experience.
Retention is Key
- The best apps retain 13x more users after 90 days than average apps.
- Retention makes acquisition exponentially cheaper.
First Impressions Matter: OOBE (Out-of-Box Experience)
🚀 Nobody will use a great feature if they never get past onboarding.
Key Takeaway
✅ Nail the first impression.
✅ Build for love, not just viability.
✅ Validate before scaling.
✅ You will build both 1-N and 0-1 products in your career.