3 C’s – Market Capital, Customer Experience, Your Career

Here are the slides from my recent product management seminars at Bangalore and Hyderabad, India.

The three takeaways (what I called three “C”s) were the following:

1. Market Capital: If you as a software product manager want to build credibility within your organization, gain as much market capital or customer capital as possible. Market capital is measured by the time you spend outside your office building talking to prospects/customers who will actually buy your product.
2. Customer Experience: Think about the overall customer experience, not just product usability or product experience. Even products with good usability can fail if they have bad customer experience. Think about all the friction points that may prevent the customer from buying from you and then remove these to create a great customer experience.
3. Your Career: No matter what you do, always think about your product management career (it is a marathon not a sprint). You are the only one who is worrying about the only product you have full control over – “You” – your boss is not, your employer is not. So treat every job as the stepping stone to the next one. If you are planning to transition into product management, always do it in your current company – hiring managers in other companies will not take the risk of hiring someone who has never done product management. Your current company will be more open to providing growth opportunities to existing employees. Take the initiative and you win….

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