The Lean Product Playbook : How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback

The Missing Manual On How To Apply Lean Startup To Build Products That Customers Love The Lean Product Playbook Is A Practical Guide To Building Products That Customers Love. Whether You Work At A Startup Or A Large, Established Company, We All Know That Building Great Products Is Hard. Most New Products Fail. This Book Helps Improve Your Chances Of Building Successful Products Through Clear, Step-by-step Guidance And Advice. The Lean Startup Movement Has Contributed New And Valuable Ideas About Product Development And Has Generated Lots Of Excitement. However, Many Companies Have Yet To Successfully Adopt Lean Thinking. Despite Their Enthusiasm And Familiarity With The High-level Concepts, Many Teams Run Into Challenges Trying To Adopt Lean Because They Feel Like They Lack Specific Guidance On What Exactly They Should Be Doing. If You Are Interested In Lean Startup Principles And Want To Apply Them To Develop Winning Products, This Book Is For You.^ This Book Describes The Lean Product Process: A Repeatable, Easy-to-follow Methodology For Iterating Your Way To Product-market Fit. It Walks You Through How To: Determine Your Target Customers Identify Underserved Customer Needs Create A Winning Product Strategy Decide On Your Minimum Viable Product (mvp) Design Your Mvp Prototype Test Your Mvp With Customers Iterate Rapidly To Achieve Product-market Fit This Book Was Written By Entrepreneur And Lean Product Expert Dan Olsen Whose Experience Spans Product Management, Ux Design, Coding, Analytics, And Marketing Across A Variety Of Products. As A Hands-on Consultant, He Refined And Applied The Advice In This Book As He Helped Many Companies Improve Their Product Process And Build Great Products. His Clients Include Facebook, Box, Hightail, Epocrates, And Medallia.^ Entrepreneurs, Executives, Product Managers, Designers, Developers, Marketers, Analysts And Anyone Who Is Passionate About Building Great Products Will Find The Lean Product Playbook An Indispensable, Hands-on Resource-- Core Concepts. Achieving Product-market Fit With The Lean Product Process ; Problem Space Versus Solution Space -- The Lean Product Process. Determine Your Target Customer (step 1) ; Identify Underserved Customer Needs (step 2) ; Define Your Value Proposition (step 3) ; Specify Your Minimum Viable Product (mvp) Feature Set (step 4) ; Create Your Mvp Prototype (step 5) ; Apply The Principles Of Great Ux Design ; Test Your Mvp With Customers (step 6) ; Iterate And Pivot To Improve Product-market Fit ; An End-to-end Lean Product Case Study -- Building And Optimizing Your Product. Build Your Product Using Agile Development ; Measure Your Key Metrics ; Use Analytics To Optimize Your Product And Business ; Conclusion. Dan Olsen. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 285-289) And Index. Cover 1 Title Page 9 Copyright 10 Contents 13 Introduction: Why Products Fail and How Lean Changes the Game 19 Part I Core Concepts 25 Chapter 1 Achieving Product-Market Fit with the Lean Product Process 27 What Is Product-Market Fit? 27 The Product-Market Fit Pyramid 28 Quicken: from #47 to #1 31 The Lean Product Process 32 Chapter 2 Problem Space versus Solution Space 37 The Space Pen 37 Problems Define Markets 39 The What and the How 40 Outside-In Product Development 40 Should You Listen to Customers? 41 A Tale of Two Apple Features 42 Using the Solution Space to Discover the Problem Space 44 Part II The Lean Product Process 47 Chapter 3 Determine Your Target Customer (Step 1) 49 Fishing for Customers 49 How to Segment Your Target Market 50 Users versus Buyers 52 Technology Adoption Life Cycle 53 Personas 54 Chapter 4 Identify Underserved Customer Needs (Step 2) 61 A Customer Need by Any Other Name 61 Customer Needs Example: TurboTax 62 Customer Discovery Interviews 64 Customer Benefit Ladders 65 Hierarchies of Needs 67 The Importance versus Satisfaction Framework 69 Related Frameworks 80 Visualizing Customer Value 82 The Kano Model 87 Putting the Frameworks to Use 90 Chapter 5 Define Your Value Proposition (Step 3) 91 Strategy Means Saying "No'' 92 Value Propositions for Search Engines 92 Not So Cuil 95 Building Your Product Value Proposition 96 Skating to Where the Puck Will Be 99 The Flip Video Camera 99 Predicting the Future with Value Propositions 99 Chapter 6 Specify Your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Feature Set (Step 4) 101 User Stories: Features with Benefits 102 Breaking Features Down 103 Smaller Batch Sizes Are Better 103 Scoping with Story Points 104 Using Return on Investment to Prioritize 104 Deciding on Your MVP Candidate 109 Chapter 7 Create Your MVP Prototype (Step 5) 113 What Is (and Isn't) an MVP? 113 MVP Tests 114 The Matrix of MVP Tests 116 Qualitative Marketing MVP Tests 117 Quantitative Marketing MVP Tests 118 Qualitative Product MVP Tests 123 Quantitative Product MVP Tests 132 Chapter 8 Apply the Principles of Great UX Design 135 What Makes a Great UX? 135 The UX Design Iceberg 140 Conceptual Design 141 Information Architecture 144 Interaction Design 147 Visual Design 153 Design Principles 159 Copy Is Also Part of UX Design 164 The A-Team 164 UX Is in the Eye of the Beholder 165 Chapter 9 Test Your MVP with Customers (Step 6) 167 How Many Customers Should I Test With? 168 In-Person, Remote, and Unmoderated User Testing 169 How to Recruit Customers in Your Target Market 172 User Testing at Intuit 176 Ramen User Testing 177 How to Structure the User Test 179 How to Ask Good Questions 180 Ask Open versus Closed Questions 182 I Feel Your Pain 183 Wrapping Up the User Test 184 How to Capture and Synthesize User Feedback 185 Usability versus Product-Market Fit 187 Chapter 10 Iterate and Pivot to Improve Product-Market Fit 191 The Build-Measure-Learn Loop 191 The Hypothesize-Design-Test-Learn Loop 192 Iterative User Testing 194 Persevere or Pivot? 199 Chapter 11 An End-to-End Lean Product Case Study 205 MarketingReport.com 205 Step 1: Determine Your Target Customers 206 Step 2: Identify Underserved Needs 206 Step 3: Define Your Value Proposition 207 Step 4: Specify Your MVP Feature Set 209 Step 5: Create Your MVP Prototype 211 Step 6: Test Your MVP with Customers 212 Iterate and Pivot to Improve Product-Market Fit 217 Reflections 221 Part III Building and Optimizing Your Product 223 Chapter 12 Build Your Product Using Agile Development 225 Agile Development 225 Scrum 229 Kanban 235 Picking the Right Agile Methodology 240 Succeeding with Agile 242 Quality Assurance 246 Test-Driven Development 249 Continuous Integration 250 Continuous Deployment 251 Chapter 13 Measure Your Key Metrics 253 Analytics versus Other Learning Methods 253 Oprah versus Spock 254 User Interviews 255 Usability Testing 255 Surveys 256 Analytics and A/B Testing 259 Analytics Frameworks 260 Identify the Metric That Matters Most 264 Retention Rate 266 The Equation of Your Business 273 Achieving Profitability 279 Chapter 14 Use Analytics to Optimize Your Product and Business 283 The Lean Product Analytics Process 283 A Lean Product Analytics Case Study: Friendster 287 Optimization with A/B Testing 296 Chapter 15 Conclusion 301 Acknowledgments 307 References 309 Resources 311 Index 315 About the Author 333 EULA 334 The missing manual on how to apply Lean Startup to build products that customers love

The Lean Product Playbook is a practical guide to building products that customers love. Whether you work at a startup or a large, established company, we all know that building great products is hard. Most new products fail. This book helps improve your chances of building successful products through clear, step-by-step guidance and advice.

The Lean Startup movement has contributed new and valuable ideas about product development and has generated lots of excitement. However, many companies have yet to successfully adopt Lean thinking. Despite their enthusiasm and familiarity with the high-level concepts, many teams run into challenges trying to adopt Lean because they feel like they lack specific guidance on what exactly they should be doing.

If you are interested in Lean Startup principles and want to apply them to develop winning products, this book is for you. This book describes the Lean Product Process: a repeatable, easy-to-follow methodology for iterating your way to product-market fit. It walks you through how to:

• Determine your target customers
• Identify underserved customer needs
• Create a winning product strategy
• Decide on your Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
• Design your MVP prototype
• Test your MVP with customers
• Iterate rapidly to achieve product-market fit

This book was written by entrepreneur and Lean product expert Dan Olsen whose experience spans product management, UX design, coding, analytics, and marketing across a variety of products. As a hands-on consultant, he refined and applied the advice in this book as he helped many companies improve their product process and build great products. His clients include Facebook, Box, Hightail, Epocrates, and Medallia.

Entrepreneurs, executives, product managers, designers, developers, marketers, analysts and anyone who is passionate about building great products will find The Lean Product Playbook an indispensable, hands-on resource.