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How to become a product manager (and stop being a sales director). Part 3

In the middle of November, our friends from Sports.ru launched a course for those who want to become a product manager of mobile applications. Among the lecturers are employees of Sports.ru, AppFollow, Aviasales, Uber and other cool guys. Throughout December, a student at kirillkobelev teaches how the course is being taught. Below is a report from lectures 4 and 5, which were devoted to painful questions for a novice product manager - monetization and management of the team. This time, for a change, in the production drama genre.

Earlier in the series:

Part 1 - who are product managers and a bit about design.
Part 2 - about the stages of application development.
')

Act 4, in which the almost full namesake of a famous writer dissuades us from doing a mobile application


- ... on the mobile development, I ate the dog. Mark Ten, CPO Sports.ru .

As I said, each of the students of the course is working on their application - with varying degrees of seriousness, but still hoping to put the knowledge into practice. I think, I will express the majority opinion, saying that I expected some kind of farewell from the main ideologist of the Mark Ten course during his lecture on monetization.

Mark said first:

- I did not think that all of you will endorse this lecture (a great start - note by the author ). I'll start with a simple thought: "If you can not do an app, then do not do it."

Thank you, Mark.

With such a parting word, you could disperse, but let's be honest - sometimes a good site is really enough for a good product. The mobile application is a tool: just as in 2010, customer requirements were reduced to a “page on the website”, in 2015 everyone saw a panacea in applications for mobile platforms.

In 2016, the situation has changed a bit - now there are clever people who offer to “save” and “make a hybrid application.” Let's agree on the shore: do not make hybrid applications. As is often the case, instead of combining the advantages of platforms and sites in a hybrid, all possible disadvantages crystallize. Interaction with the resources of mobile platforms is still not working, the flexibility of the site has already been lost. Seriously, these days mobile internet is cheap and fast enough to get along with a cool website (no, I didn't say cheap, I said cheap enough :)

Why did aborigines eat cook?


The task of mobile stores (App Store and Google Play) is an outsourcing business. The list of business functions that the platforms assume is impressive:


Interlude in which everything is relative


You'd be surprised, but for the pleasure of not thinking about many aspects of the business and focusing on the development you have to pay, in the literal and figurative sense. Here are some tips for the product manager of a mobile application:


Like real natives, we all live in a cargo-cult of a new version of mobile operating systems. Each new update arrives will drop a ton of new requirements on the product manager, for which the application will definitely be replaced with non-compliance (no one will use the new products anyway).

A climax in which new heroes come on the scene


Everyone knows the saying about fish and the dynamics of decomposition processes. This dynamic is such that it is time to think about what tools will replace mobile applications.

Here they are, the heroes of the new time:


Intermission, in which the author, guiltily smiling, sells advertising


The absurdity of the domestic reality lies in the fact that our consumer simultaneously wants new products and features and at the same time does not want to pay for them. A manager who wants to earn and recoup product creation will have to choose one of three monetization options. They differ only in the taste of tar:


In continuation of the topic of mobile advertising, I have to note that Mark accomplished the feat and for the whole half an hour told us about automated targeted classroom procurement in real time by the auction method, without uttering Word-On-Letter-Pe * (spoiler: * Programmatic) . He did not say, and I will not - go to any digital conference, they only talk about that.

Meanwhile, the intermission comes to an end, and since advertising needs to be shown at the junction of user scenarios, I will say that Anton Baitsur will come out of Aviasales in the next action.

Act 5, in which Anton Baitsur tells quite clearly how to manage people who are much smarter than us


Probably, Anton had in mind that the product manager should constantly work with specialists who are far superior to him in his area of ​​expertise, but it sounded as if we, having got involved in product management, did not act too wisely.

Seriously. It's time to add a few words about process management and the project component of the product manager's work. Let's start with cutting off the excess:


In the first lecture, the idea was already expressed that the product manager acts as a mini-director, and his main duty is to set goals and create an effective environment for the whole team. Indeed, you do not need to know the intricacies of developing or designing interfaces, but you have to select people again, and again, and again.

Let's stop for a second and fix: the only practical way to measure the success of a product manager is the money earned by his product. The product manager cannot afford not to think about money .

Scene one: food balancing act


Since the product manager’s main job is communication and organization of the process, it often looks like juggling with burning balls (on a fishing line, over an abyss, under the gun’s sight). Do not underestimate the ability to find a balance.

This aspect of work is described by the term product operations and includes the following elements:


Let's return to the topic of financial efficiency: remember that the positive indicator of EBIDTA, to which they like to refer, is not informative in itself. The chosen investment policy is much more important: you can cut costs and sit in the black at the cost of squeezing a business, or you can invest in development and sit in a relative minus. You decide (and investors), so it is important to make a plan and approach in advance. The product manager will have to carefully study the cases of other products, because only from practice come options for market strategy and tactics.

Scene Two: product marketing


Another important aspect of the work of the product manager is to convey the value of his product to the maximum number of people. It is worth remembering that marketing is a sales tool. Yes, in the 21st century it is already possible to switch to a marketing-centric model, when interaction with the consumer and the creation of customer value is put at the forefront of everything, including development. From this, of course, it follows that marketers must take more responsibility for the profitability of the product.

Also on the side of the product manager are basic things like market analysis, tracking the behavior of competitors and key messaging, analytics and the launch of new features and products.

Scene three, final: the product is dead, long live the product!


I will say a banal thing, but products die just like everything else, in full accordance with the life cycle. Therefore, the manager needs to be purposefully engaged in the development of new products. This process is called - new product development.

Basically, it consists of the following steps:


If you break this process into functional components, you get this picture:


Deus ex machina


Thanks to everyone who read to this place :). It seems so far this is the longest longrid in the series. We’ve done half the way, three notes left, and the next lecture, like an antique god from a car, is sent to us by Uber data scientist Oleg Novikov, who will talk about analytics, machine learning, and what is the use of all this.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/317460/

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