Product Success – Post-Launch Checklist

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The (Other) Only Thing That Matters for a Startup

Marc Andressen once famously wrote that in the great debate about what is most important for a startup: the team, the product or the market, that the only thing that matters for a new startup is the market. He crystalized his thinking by quoting Andy Rachleff, formerly of Benchmark Capital, by stating:

Rachleff’s Law of Startup Success: The #1 company-killer is lack of market.
• When a great team meets a lousy market, market wins.
• When a lousy team meets a great market, market wins.
• When a great team meets a great market, something special happens.

As Marc noted, you can obviously screw up a great market — and that has been done, more than once. So there is little debate that a great product-market fit will tend to equal success and a poor product-market fit will tend to equal failure. Product-market fit matters most. But building and launching a break-through product (or startup), is more than just getting the market right.

In fact if the goal is about finding a break-through product it is critical to think about the post-launch issues in the early days of the product design. Many teams tend to relax after launch but in my experience significant risk exists well beyond the initial launch. In fact, many of the elements that define a sustainable, scalable, break-through product are wrapped up in the product focus that happens after launch. You might be a bit skeptical on this but I want to focus on 3 primary areas that successful product teams focus on after launch that generate Break-Through Product Success: Go-Live, Retention, Grow!

Go-Live is the initial moment the customer or client Go-Live with the product. Retention is focused on minimizing customer churn and understanding if the solution is solving a real need or a perceived need. Grow! Is all about adding new customers, achieving scale, and maximizing value.

The common theme that all three of these product areas have in common is each provides an indication of how the market is receiving and understanding your product. How well your organization is equipped to receive, process and respond to what the market is telling you is the key driver for that Post-Launch success we are all looking for. This BLOG will focus on the Go-Live moment and in future BLOGs I will address these other categories of achieving post-launch success.

Go-Live:
So let’s start with the Go-Live moment, which I define as that first moment the customer or client comes into contact with the product. This is not Go-Live from you, the company, but rather Go-Live from the Client perspective. This is not a one-time moment, but an on-going moment your company must capture. This is the implementation or provisioning moment that as buyers we have all held our breath wondering if the experience will match expectation. Will the product be intuitive to use? Will the solution solve my problem? And how long will the implementation take?
Obviously we have made the purchase, so we have some expectation that our life is about to get better – but how much better? That moment of truth is here – whether a Consumer or an Enterprise Client; whether a SaaS solution or a Hardware solution – every time the product is launched by the end-user, at least one person is experiencing that “Go Live” moment. So the question for you and your organization, is how well prepared are you to capture this moment? How will the client communicate this experience back to you and your team? What product metrics have been designed to capture the experience and to measure the performance?

The core of a successful Go Live moment ties directly back to a product that is easy to provision. Hardware companies spend many hours worrying about the ease of making the device plug-n-play. This attribute becomes mission critical in the ever expanding world of IOT where devices proliferate throughout the edge of the network. In the connected-car world (think On-Star) the system is activated by pressing a button, usually on the visor or overhead. The product teams spent significant hours figuring out how to get the subscriber over the “Fear-of-the-Button” and to start the activation process by simply pressing a button. On one hand it sounds so simple, on the other never under-estimate the subscriber’s fear of looking foolish. To some extent, we have all experienced this uncertainty the first time we buy a new phone, worrying about how it will start-up and if our songs, pictures, and contact info will seamlessly load.

As you think through this experience you quickly understand how this process is even more critical for Mobile or Web Applications and for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based companies. Software based solutions have to make that early stage configuration intuitive, while minimizing clicks and launching seamlessly in your existing Operating System. How many of us have bought an App, and not have it integrate into an existing feature we already used (think Calendars), or have purchased software that takes too long to configure, or has a GUI (General User Interface) or CX (Customer Experience) that is not intuitive.

During the Product Design process the Provisioning / On-boarding / Implementation should be rigorously understand during the product validation stage, heavily vetted during the MVP stage, and constantly validated during the launch stage. All of the classic tools should be leveraged for capturing feedback on this moment. Some of those tools are:
• Product metrics built into the design that provide insights to the Go Live moment measuring such things as launch timing, sequence, experience. Time of day, & frequency of use can provide valuable knowledge to how the product is being used. Without getting user specific info, location data can also be insightful (indoors or outdoors, on the go or still, etc)
• Analytics should be used to process trend analysis for how this experience progresses over time.
• The call center or service center should by sensitized to questions actively searching out customers or clients in that Go Live moment. Product teams should sit with and monitor calls for major themes and insights into this “Go Live” experience.
• Social Media should be mined frequently for people who are capturing that Go Live experience.

From each of these areas, the positive experiences, measurements and trends will provide the product teams with the guard-rails of what to highlight and focus on during future releases. The negative experiences will provide a path forward on how to differentiate, invest, and improve.

The challenge for the product team in achieving that sustainable and scalable break-through product, is to make sure they have designed a method or approach or process or metrics around that initial customer Go Live moment. As we will see in future BLOGs this is critical step in hearing how the market is receiving your solution and if you are achieving that elusive product-market fit.

Product Rescue

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Exactly what is a “Product Rescue”?

There is nothing that puts a knot in the gut of an entrepreneur than the struggle to scale a product solution. The Founder has received both market and technical validation by selling and delivering small scale solutions – whether a pilot, a MVP or an actual commercial sell – so they know the idea is needed and the technology is there to support it!

But moving to the next step in scaling the product to meet a broader market, creates new pain-points, and causes new problems. It is in this phase of growth where I frequently see either execution issues or product that needs to be rescued.

It is in this Product Rescue scenario, where the Founder or Investor begin looking for more experienced interim support, where the TechCXO Product and Technology team are called. I apologize if this sounds like Ghostbusters, “Who ya gonna’ call” but to many this is exactly what it feels like – chasing Ghosts!

How to Scale

Without an organized, strategic approach to scaling a product solution the whole organization can become very chaotic, and this is a key characteristic of what I am calling a Product Rescue.

Fear begins to set in as you worry that the beach-head that has been hard fought and won in the early days is going to slip away if the Product Execution does not step-up. While there are no cookie-cutter answers, experience shows the problems of scaling a tech solution usually requires addressing three areas simultaneously: People, Process, and Product-Technology.

People

We all know that our team-members are one of the greatest assets of an any organization, but the challenge is how much do we let our team members learn on the job verses bringing in new, more experienced talent?

As the organization grows, roles need to be defined, and communication methods need to be tighter. As Jim Collins, stated in Good to Great a Level 5 Leader understands how to evaluate the people in the org and understands how to get the right people, in the right seats, doing the right things.

Adding and evaluating people while not disrupting the culture is critical to scaling a solution. An interim TechCXO CTO / Product and Tech leader not only understands these challenges but has been through this evaluation multiple times.

Process

Of course, another reason for a Product Rescue, could be a lack of process, and this could directly effect the Team’s (i.e. People) ability to get things done.

While almost all of us get a little throw-up in the back of our throat thinking about our orgs becoming bureaucratic and bound by process, none of us can thrive in chaos.

Typically the process gaps are found in areas around portfolio management (prioritizing the Development work) so we don’t get stuck in the incremental improvements while also keeping the product fresh; managing change control so post-sales support can react to field issues faster; and strengthening the product plan so that we can plan out the path forward, and our “No” becomes clearer.

Typically the process gaps are found in areas around portfolio management (prioritizing the Development work)

Product-Technology

Finally, if there is one area that seems to come as a surprise it is the product-technology area, where the Founder either has technical debt or needs new tools to help keep up with scaling the product-solution.

This is another area that will impact the team and need process support to implement effectively.

Just the other day, I was working with a company that has hired three new sales-and-marketing people because they have to scale the client engagements. The problem is they do not have a CRM Tool – they are not ready for a large enterprise tool, but they need a way to reach prospects quickly, consistently, and make sure the same prospect is not getting hit with the same message from different team members.

Obviously, you can just implement a tool without having a process to organize team members input. While this simple example illustrates one type of product-technology problem in a product rescue, the technology challenges can pop up in many form factors that are ultimately affecting the customer experience.   The key to recognizing and solving this problem is having the experience to know what needs to be addressed and what can wait.

Determining how the people, process and product tech areas work in harmony is key to experiencing not only growth but a culture where employees thrive and customers want to continue to use the product over-and-over again.