Do you create product roadmaps in Trello?
In this episode, we chat with Nikhil Vimal about all things roadmaps in Trello.
We’ll talk about:
– Creating a roadmap in Trello
– Using Trello effectively
– Updating and sharing your roadmaps
INDUSTRY conference *usually* happens twice a year in person and attracts hundreds of attendees from all over the world.
Due to obvious reasons this year the INDUSTRY conference is going virtual (Sept 22 and 23).
We chat with co-founder Mike Belsito about how Mike and his team are making preparations to take INDUSTRY conference virtual.
It takes a lot to organize a conference (we know remember Product Impact).
Join us and learn:
– The decision to take INDUSTRY conference virtual
– The logistics behind organizing a virtual conference
– Some of their lessons learned so far
and so much more.
In this session, we talk to Satish Madiraju, Director, Products & Solutions at Fortinet and Neeraj Mathur, VP of Product as they share their thoughts on how to break into Product Management & the first 90 days.
Whether you are looking to get into Product Management or just transitioned, there’s something to learn.
By the end of the session, you’ll learn about:
– How to transition into Product Management
– What do you need to do to be successful in the role
– Discuss 30-60-90 days plan approach for any PM
In this episode of The Product Angle Show. We talk Lessons learned from 17 years of remote Product Management w/ Hiten Shah.
Full write up coming soon.
In this episode of The Product Angle, learn how to prioritize and build effective roadmaps. We chat with Malte Scholz – Head of Product and Co-Founder of airfocus.
By the end of the episode you’ll learn about:
– Prioritization
– Building effective product roadmaps
– How Malte founded and grew airfocus
Plus so much more.
Are you changing jobs or re-entering the workforce? Use these 10 steps and learn how to negotiate your product manager salary offer.
If you’re looking for that next promotion, stay tuned; an article on how to get your next product manager promotion coming soon.
What is your why? (the entry criteria)
The interview process
The exit (offer or not)
Your decision to be made
What is a salary negotiation?
Should you negotiate your salary?
Why people don’t negotiate salary?
Who should you negotiate with?
Should you work with [external] recruiters?
1. Know what you want
2. What other options do you have?
3. Determine your walk away point
4. Build leverage before you need it
5. Do some research
6. Understand the company
7. The success plan
8. Negotiate
9. Maintain relationships
10. What’s your start date?
What not to do
Frequently asked questions
Want to practice your negotiation skills?
During your career, there is usually an event that makes you want to look for another job, think of this as your why. Each individual will have their own story and why, however here is what I mean, you:
Think of this as your entry criteria or the trigger that compels you to look for another job. Based on your story you will likely have a list of things that you are looking for in your next role.
Are you in the job market because you want to be or because you have to be? this will impact how you negotiate.
For example, if:
Remember: Salary is only one element of the total package on offer.
Every company will have its own interview style and process. Some companies will specifically ask you how you can and would improve the actual product you will be working on if you get hired. On the other hand, some companies will ask you hypothetical questions to see how you think.
By the end of the interview process (the exit point), there are only two definite outcomes, you:
Great now, go back to your initial why. Does the offer you received match up with the why?
It may be possible that some things align and some don’t. Understand the trade-offs. For example, if your why is to make more money, you may be given additional responsibilities which in turn may take more of your time.
If you accept the loop is closed for now (until your why changes.)
Figure out what happened. If the company you are interviewing with is open to sharing feedback, great, listen to what they say.
If the feedback you receive is constructive, for example, the team’s feedback is the team wanted a little more in the product execution phase.
Then I’d go back and improve my skills in that area.
Learn from it and loop back to your entry criteria.
If you have not yet read What is negotiation for product managers, i’d suggest reading that first.
There I described what a negotiation is:
Negotiation is a discussion between two or more people to reach a mutually beneficial agreement. Share on XA salary negotiation or discussion *usually* occurs before an offer is made. Depending on your level and experience there are obvious exceptions to the rule, however, for the purposes of this article let’s say that the negotiation lasts around 20 – 30 mins.
However, leading up to that discussion you’ll need to do a lot of work to be effective during those 20-30 mins.
You’ll need to draw on other skills such as communications, building trust, ability to be persuasive, and closing the offer.
It depends.
At the time of writing this article, we are in an international pandemic. Many friends, families, and neighbors are losing their jobs. If you have a good BATNA then maybe. However, if you are laid off due to COVID-19 or let go under a workforce reduction program and have bills to pay you may not have sufficient leverage. In that situation, it might be better to be employed and have some money coming in to help with living expenses.
However, if you have a good financial cushion and do not need money for living expenses, good job-saving. That will give you a good BATNA and sufficient leverage. However, market conditions mean that more people are looking for work than job available and too much negotiation may do more harm than good.
It’s a tough fine line that cannot be answered in one paragraph and without understanding your specific situation.
If you don’t ask you don’t get. By negotiating you may get additional compensation directly (or indirectly through benefits).
If you decide to negotiate too much and are not flexible, a possibility exists that the offer may not come or worse the company decides to withdraw the offer.
It’s a fine line sometimes and will depend on a number of factors that we will through in this article.
Photo by Emily Morter
Do you negotiate?
In my opinion, salary negotiation is very difficult. There are so many different schools of thought here. Typically when I look back at my own personal situation the following reasons come to mind why I didn’t negotiate when I first started my career.
I think the last one: “lack of comparables…” now should not be as much of an issue as say 20 years ago. There is so much information online. There really is no excuse not to do your research.
Generally speaking, you may interview with different people and functions. However, there probably is a person who has an internal recruiter (or HR business partner) type role who explains the process and gives you feedback. Secondly, there is likely a hiring manager who will be from the business.
The hiring manager will likely interview you and possibly introduce you to the team or have you interview with members of the team.
Again, generally speaking, there are exceptions to any rule. The internal recruiter generally prohibits the hiring manager from talking about salary. Because the hiring manager may not be trained in salary negotiations. Usually, the internal recruiter or HR business partner will handle the salary conversation.
I would go to say that some internal recruiters (or HR business partners) tell the hiring manager before the interview with you that the hiring manager has no authority to negotiate salary.
Therefore, you’re probably likely going to negotiate with the internal recruiter (or HR business partner). However, in my opinion, if the hiring manager is open to having a conversation about salary then why not?
When I say recruiters in this context I mean external recruiters. External recruiters are not employed by the company you’d be interviewing with. However, depending on the relationship the external recruiter is paid a fee to find a candidate.
My answer, again, it depends.
Sometimes external recruiters have access to opportunities that may not be publically available. Smaller and mid-size companies may not have a sufficient need to hire an internal recruiter and therefore hire external recruitment companies to help with the search.
If you are considering using an external recruiter here are a few things to consider:
As with everything know what you are getting yourself into. Good recruiters can help open doors. Bad recruiters can really mess the job search up for you. Or just not communicate with you.
For the purposes of this article, we will refer to internal recruiters, HR business partners, and external recruiters as “recruiters.”
To start off with let’s set up some house rules. Negotiating your salary is a very personal thing. While I can tell you about my experiences, what I think are best practices, things to think about when negotiating your salary, etc. The actual act of negotiation is a skill that YOU need to develop. Negotiation is not something you can memorize and regurgitate. It’s a skill, a muscle that you build with practice.
Photo by Ian Schneider
This is a very important topic. Be very clear as to what you are looking for. In the long run, this can save you time and money joining a company that is not a good fit. Similarly, a “bad hire” or a hire that isn’t into the company costs the company money as well. Which is the reason why some companies hire very slowly.
Typically it’s very easy to get focused on one aspect of the job offer the salary. I get it, we have bills to pay and money is a very big part of why we work.
As a side note: Do not feel bad for wanting more money or specific benefits. If you are happy and financially things are taken care of you’ll want to do well in your careers. Not focus on worrying about paying rent.
While the title of this article is called “how to negotiate your product manager salary offer.” You need to keep in mind that finding your next role is more than salary. Like I mentioned in the previous sentence don’t get me wrong money is important, however, don’t forget the other potential benefits:
| Stock | Commissions |
|---|---|
| Bonus (yearly/ sign on) | Profit sharing |
| Gym membership | 401K/ retirement |
| Expense account | Training budget |
| Health benefits | Vacation/ sick pay |
| Flexible working hours | Childcare |
| Relocation | Start date |
Clearly the above list is not comprehensive, however, its a good starting point. While you are negotiating your salary and the total package make a list of other benefits that in a list of least attractive to most attractive.
Therefore, the first benefit on your list will be the one that you can trade first for another benefit that is more attractive to you.
In negotiation terms, this is referred to as BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement). In other words what other options do you have if you do not get a job offer in the current interview process?
Typically this could be:
The better the BATNA you have the more confident you will be and create leverage for yourself. However, if you are facing the possibility of filing for unemployment since you are currently unemployed. You have a poor BATNA and you need to not appear desperate.
If the internal recruiter asks (and they typically do) where are you in the process of your job hunt. They are fishing to see what other options you have. If you are unemployed my suggestion is to say something like “you are talking with other companies.” Which you should be if you are unemployed. Do not, I repeat outright lie.
Why not tell the recruiter that you are unemployed?
During this time of COVID-19 if you feel comfortable to let the internal recruiter know you were laid off fine. That is understandable, maybe the internal recruiter will be empathetic to the situation.
However, in a “regular environment,” we’d like to think recruiters are understanding. However, some recruiters may use this information as leverage and offer you a lower salary because they know you’ll likely accept whatever they offer because you need a job.
which is unfortunately sad as you may take that offer but start looking for a higher paid job.
You may be asked what are the other companies you are talking to. This is highly likely. My suggestion here is to not disclose any company names or individual people. You don’t know who knows who. I suggest you say something like “you don’t feel comfortable disclosing any specifics since you are still in talks with the company.”
Again, do not lie.
That is fantastic. First, consider would you prefer to take that job with $10k more? (meaning would you rather work at that company?)
If the answer is yes, then why are you trying to negotiate for an offer here?
Maybe you’re trying to see if you can get a better offer (if both companies are relatively equal).
Be careful to not unknowingly make a threat.
Bad way to disclose your alternate job offer: [company] is offering me 10k more, if you don’t raise your offer I’ll join [company].
Good way to disclose your alternate job offer: I am very interested in working for [company name] there could be a mutually good fit. However, I am struggling to reconcile the $10k difference between your offer and another offer I have. What can we do about this?”
Remember, once you’ve asked this question. There will likely be quiet. Do not be the first to speak, you’ll likely lose any leverage you’ve built up by asking this question.
Wait for a response. Be ok with that uncomfortable silence.
Before you start negotiating take some time and 1. Know what you want. This will help you be aware during the negotiation as salary negotiations can get emotional.
Walking away seems difficult. However in the long run if you cannot agree on specifics walking away will prevent you from accepting a job that you will later regret.
If you need time to think about it, tell that to the recruiter. Many times they will understand. There are times the company will give you 24 hours or even tell you that if you are in two minds maybe it won’t work out and withdraw the offer.
Honestly, if you are in that situation, in my opinion, you’ve dodged a bullet.
Above all, remember that your salary expectations need to be realistic.
Write down when an offer starts to look unattractive to you and doesn’t fit in with your why. Writing it down will help you solidify your walk-away point and serve as a reminder.
Photo by Raychan
Getting a product manager position right now is difficult. It’s one of those coveted positions that many people are looking to grab. According to Glassdoor the product manager role is #9 on their list of The 50 Best Jobs in America for 2018.
Therefore, if you are fortunate enough to get an interview why should the company hire you? What can you bring to the table that is better than the other applicants?
Are you active in product communities? if not, why not? consider joining a product community, there are many free and paid options available.
Why because you need to start developing your product thinking. In my opinion, you need to start thinking about products.
Writing online, interacting with other product people might not be the reason why you get the job. However, it helps you develop your product skills.
Not sure where to start just write about a product you like or are interested in. For example, HEY is a new email service from Basecamp. It took Basecamp 15 days to slowly invite users into their platform. During these 15 days, social media was full of people asking for invites and what people thought of HEY.
I wrote a piece as well: Hey – Is the new email service from Basecamp worth the hype?. It’s a simple article about my thoughts on using HEY.
Since I knew that HEY will be making the service available to everyone very soon I did not have much time to use and think about it through a product lens, therefore, it became an article about my initial thoughts after a few days of use.
But you get the point.
Other forms of leverage could be as simple as finding an internal champion who is willing to make a warm intro to the hiring manager or fight for you as you go through the application process.
Think: What can you bring to the table that someone else cannot? for example, experience.
In G. Richard Shell’s book Bargaining for advantage there are three different types of leverage:
Richard also talks about the power of coalitions whereby using relationships and shared interests help create effective coalitions to gain all three types of leverage.
When considering leverage remember:
In my opinion building trust and rapport early on is also a form of leverage. This is why in studies experienced negotiators spend some time on small talk or also known as the icebreaker.
So it’s not a bad thing to talk about something other than the intended purpose for a few mins at the beginning.
I cannot stress how important this is. The more research you are able to do beforehand the better for you during the interview and negotiation process. Things to research include:
If you Google “product management salary” you’ll get an idea of what product managers get paid based on experience. To further refine Google, “product management salary [NYC]” where you replace [NYC] with the name of your city.
Sites such as Glassdoor, and Built in NYC are on the front page of Google.
Further, refine this search to “[name of company] product management salary [your city]” to get an idea of what the company pays.
This should go without saying, however, don’t believe everything you read online. Try and find people who currently work there or people who worked at the company in the past.
Talking salary is very personal and please be careful to not directly ask someone what they make. Reframe the question to be neutral.
For example, what range should I expect product managers at [name of company] make in [your city]?
You’re more likely to get a response to that question than “How much do you make at Netflix?”
Larger companies such as FAANG companies share a lot of information online from the company itself but also from people who went through the process. Understand what the process is for the company.
Find out who your single point of contact is. You’ll likely speak with multiple internal stakeholders who only know so much information. Find out who is the one person that will be with you throughout the entire process. Typically this is the internal recruiter or HR business partner if you are working with the company directly. If you are working with an external recruiter than typically the external recruiter is your single point of contact.
During your first call ask this question and confirm. It will save you a lot of time trying to chase people up when they may not have all the information.
This is particularly important if you did not get the job. I’d like to think that it’s common sense to tell a candidate that the company appreciates the time the candidate spent however, the company has chosen to move forward with another candidate.
It’s closure, right?
Yet, many times there is radio silent.
The solution, in my opinion, is when you are asking the question above about who is the single point of contact. Also, ask what the process is for feedback in the event you are not selected.
Something like:
Hey [recruiter], after the interviews with [x] and [y], I am assuming they cannot give me any feedback do they feed this information to you?
If so can what is the process to pass this information on to me?
Would it be ok to contact you again if I don’t hear from you>
Or if you are not the right person who is?
I’d appreciate it if you could let me know even if its a no that way I can cross out this opportunity from my tracker.
Asking questions along those lines, give you information on the process and actionable steps to take.
When I used to interview candidates do you know the number of people who have not been to the company website and do not know what we do?
Don’t be that person.
The least, in my opinion, is to understand how the company makes money. What are some of the popular products and how they provide value to their users?
I often get asked what if I don’t know anyone from the company. Here’s what you do:
Let’s say the company you are looking to interview with is Facebook. This is very easy by googling search terms like:
You get the point.
However, you are smart. Don’t believe everything you read online. Go to the Facebook’s 10-k filing with the securities and exchange commission. Read the latest one, you’ll find some very useful information. There is so much research and information written about public companies, you don’t really have an excuse not to do smart research.
However, I hear you say what if the company I work for it not a publically traded company then what?
It definitely is harder, but not impossible. In which case the company website is a great place to start.
You’ll find what they are selling and their main source(s) of income. You probably won’t get stats unless it’s an open open startup.
Next, with caution, you may be able to find current or former employees on social media who are willing to help.
Please note: I am not advocating spam people with emails, DMs, and carrier pigeons until you get a response. Many people are open to helping some are not.
Different companies will have different processes. Understand what that is. For example, it could be a series of calls then a in person interview:
Or some variation of the above. By the time you get to call 4 with the internal recruiter, they will know if they want to negotiate with you or you’ll know if they don’t.
Similar to your BATNA, the company you are interviewing with also has a BATNA – typically other candidates.
Once an internal recruiter asked me “where are you in the process of your job hunt” and I told the internal recruiter my response. I asked “how about you? how is the search going?”
The response shocked me a little. Although, this was early in my career.
The response was “we are planning to make an offer next week to the leading candidate, we are interviewing you in case the offer is rejected”
My heart sank, all the hours of interview research and prep for this company gone. I mean really what chance do I have.
In the end, I never heard back from the internal recruiter. I sent two emails nothing. I assume the leading candidate accepted.
As with everything, there will be exceptions some internal (and external) recruiters are awesome and will keep you informed of the progress and process. Some won’t. If you’re working with one that won’t chances are they won’t because they don’t want to hire you (or the hiring manager doesn’t).
I know it’s hard, however, stop looking for closure and just move on.
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All the prep work and research you’ve done up until this point starts to come into play. The success plan is broken down into two sections:
Depending on the company you are interviewing with you may need to go through hypothetical exercises. For example, for Facebook, there are two 45 Min Video Conference Interviews: 1. Product Sense: Here you are building a product from scratch. 2. Execution.
If you pass those two stages you’ll be invited for leadership and drive session.
Then at some point, you’ll talk to someone from the team you’ll be working with. This is where you need to understand why you are being hired. What aspect of the product will you be working and will be responsible for?
What skills or experience can you bring that is above and beyond the next best candidate?
As mentioned earlier, the negotiation for the purposes of this article is expected to be 20-30 minutes. You have so many different elements to think about and communicate your value. Create a plan for how you’d like to proceed.
Write it down before the negotiation.
Make notes during the negotiation.
Salary negotiation checklist.
I don’t think this needs to be said, however, here goes. During the interview process, you’ll be asked many questions. Be honest be truthful.
Some of the areas where I think it’s easy to bend the truth include:
By the time you get to this discussion, if you’ve followed the previous 6 steps you should have some topics you’d like to discuss.
Depending on the size of the company it could go a couple of ways:
Generally speaking (again there are exceptions), the company will make the first offer. However, again depending on the experience of the recruiter they make not make an offer until they have some comfort in knowing that you’ll accept.
In which case the question they’ll ask is: If we made an offer for $xx, xxx would you accept it?
This is getting an informal buy-in from you. If the number is acceptable then I do not see any reason in responding: If you were to make an offer for $xx, xxx I’d be interested in accepting.
In both cases remember the if.
Again, it depends on your specific case.
In the above example, the recruiter asked If we made an offer for $xx, xxx would you accept it?
This is gauging if you are going to accept or negotiate.
If you say as in the example: If you were to make an offer for $xx, xxx I’d be interested in accepting and then upon getting an offer start to negotiate.
At this point, you have leverage since you have an offer. However, the recruiter will want to know what changed from when they asked you if we made an offer for $xx, xxx would you accept it? and now?
Some recruiters may see that as being dishonest and may not want to continue the conversation.
Depending on your school of thought. You may be thinking well the recruiter expects some sort of negotiation and therefore the first offer will be lower. Now to clarify always is a strong word.
This is where your preparation and research comes in.
Your ability to communicate and effectively sell your skills and what you can do comes into play.
Remember, salary is only a portion of the entire package.
Remember, if you get a job offer make sure it is in writing.
Interviews are all about people.
During the interview process you are likely to meet a number of people; hiring manager, internal recruiter, HR, individuals who interview you, etc.
Your goal is to work with them more often.
Even if you don’t get the job you don’t know when and where you may run into them again.
This is especially true if you have a poor BATNA like facing the possibility of filing for unemployment insurance.
Don’t sound desperate, recruiters are trained to smell desperation. This could lead to a lower offer or no offer at all.
Are you someone who feels uncomfortable? if so you might find it difficult to talk about salary, money, and benefits. In which case we recommend getting some practice.
Sometimes things just don’t work out during the interview and negotiation process. It could be for a number of reasons. However, let’s say one of the interviewers liked you and wanted to hire you. For some reason, (let’s say in this case the company was about to make someone else an offer but your interview was already scheduled).
If the interviewer who liked you moves to a different company they may still remember you. Don’t burn the bridge.
At this time you’ll have either received an offer or been nicely told no thank you (yes I know some recruiters will ghost you. Let’s not go there).
Figure out what happened. If the company you are interviewing with is open to sharing feedback, great, listen to what they say.
If the feedback you receive is constructive, for example, the team’s feedback is you didn’t fare well in the product execution phase.
Then I’d go back and improve my skills in that area.
Learn from it and loop back to your entry point.
Go back to your initial why.
Ask yourself some questions:
During the negotiation, the start date will most likely come up. However, remember the process set in place by the company. Here’s what I mean the offer will most likely be contingent on something (or a number of somethings).
For example, successful completion of a medical (especially in healthcare), satisfactory references, or approval from the internal head of the product.
Therefore, during the latter stages of the negotiation make sure you understand if the company is asking you questions or making an offer and what if anything is the offer contingent upon.
Photo by Roman Bozhko
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Every negotiation is different. Below are a few things that we think you should not do.
Photo by Free to use sounds
Most likely you are not the only candidate. With the unemployment rate so high there are plenty of other candidates. Do not issue an ultimatum.
To be clear if you say something like; unless you give me $xx, xxx I will not accept your offer is an example of an ultimatum.
If the employer does accept this, it probably doesn’t save the relationship and may come with consequences down the road.
No explanation needed period.
Don’t push your luck, if your fortunate to get something you asked for. Don’t push your luck and ask for one more thing. This is where being prepared helps.
If you hear the words “we need an answer within 24 hours” run. Some companies may give you limited time to consider the offer because they know you may get other offers and may use it as leverage to get another offer.
If you are being forced to make a decision based on an artificial deadline, my suggestion is run. You’ll likely face other issues down the road as the company may not value employee health as well as other things.
Below are a few questions that you should be expected to prepare for before negotiating your salary.
Firstly, Salary History Questions During the Hiring Process are Illegal in NYC. I would check first if it’s legal where you are to ask such questions.
The danger of these questions is that the internal recruiter will anchor your offer based on your current salary + a small bump to entice you to make the move.
This doesn’t take into consideration what you can do the new company only what you’ve done previously.
A very likely question, usually very early on in my experience. This should get you thinking:
The first thing you should do is to clarify if they are asking because they are making an offer or collecting information. If you are in the first call with the internal recruiter most likely they are collecting information. In which case you should consider responding by
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How to negotiate your product manager salary offer. Share on X
In this episode of The Product Angle Show, we chat all things roadmaps and best practices with Liz Love of ProdPad.
By the end of the episode you’ll learn:
The roadmap is a way of sharing strategy with stakeholders/customers. It’s the what/why of your plans, rather than the when/how/who (which is project management). It’s a living document that is adapted over time to ensure your strategy is always aligned with how you’ll reach your vision and objectives.
What are some of the important things that go into a roadmap?
It’s really important to have a clear definition of the problems you’re solving, and why. It’s not about showing a list of features, it’s about saying who you’re planning to help, and why.
So what if you’re adding a new AI feature to your product.
Why are you doing it?
Who will it help?
What’s the point for your customers and also for your own business?
For Liz, knowing why you’re planning to make a change is the most important thing. It can fundamentally change what feature you decide to build. Liz has hit this situation in her PM past, where PM’s changed their approach to solving a problem when they learned more about it.
It was painful, PM’s threw away work we’d already done, but the resulting solution was MUCH better as a solution, and long-lasting too.
Liz is seeing more people understand the comments made earlier. Liz started working for ProdPad nearly 3 years ago and spent a lot of time explaining what a good roadmap looks like. These days, while Liz still does that, she is usually preaching to the choir – people are more aware that a roadmap and a release plan are different things.
Liz is also seeing more people understand the value of linking the roadmap to goals, whether that’s OKRs or some variant.
In addition, Liz is starting to see other parts of the business realize that lean road mapping/planning is a good way to approach their work. It’s not just about building a product. It’s about productizing other functions like sales, customer success, or marketing.
Most people who know about the ProdPad way know that we highlight the dangers of roadmaps which include a timeline.
However, there’s a subtlety that isn’t always understood.
It’s less about having a date on a roadmap (which, let’s face it, is sometimes unavoidable – like when trying to meet a legal or regulatory requirement, or maybe a fixed commercial event like a conference or holiday season).
It’s more about including time in the structure of the roadmap format. As soon as there is a timeline on a roadmap, everything is naturally linked to that timeline. Using a now/next/later format (as we do in ProdPad) means the time horizons are looser and less restrictive.
It takes the focus off trying to guess the delivery of everything and instead allows you to focus on solving the right problems in the right order. Liz doesn’t see anything wrong with adding a date to an initiative that is time sensitive, but it has to be done in a way that doesn’t imply dates for all the other initiatives on the page.
Liz believes they should be phrased as a problem to solve or a hypothesis. For example “Can we increase engagement by adding a social aspect to our website?” or “Can we reduce support queries by providing more guidance?”.
These questions state the desired outcome (increased engagement, reduced support queries). It also states the suggested change in a way that doesn’t indicate a specific solution. They make it clear what problem is being solved and give the flexibility to experiment with the right solutions.
Having a roadmap that’s written in that way gives the product team the opportunity to explore, discover, and eventually arrive at a solution which gives the best outcome. You might want to phrase the initiative as a solution if you’re about to deliver it, as you’ve done the discovery and know what you’re doing – another reason to constantly adapt your roadmap as you discover more.
A product team working in that environment is more likely to create products that resonate with the market. Having an experimental mindset allows for the best possible outcomes to be reached, and reduces the risk of business failure.
ProdPad is a product management tool that encourages a positive, lean product culture. It provides a way to define the business model, vision, and objectives associated with your products, collect feedback and ideas from stakeholders, customers, and the market and align the market needs with the business’ objectives. It’s very collaborative and encourages everyone in the company to get involved in defining the product direction. Being clear, it’s a tool that helps product teams with discovery and strategy and integrates with a bunch of other tools to enable delivery. Importantly, it covers the entire product lifecycle, not just project management.
Thank you, Liz, for sharing valuable information around roadmap best practices.
However, before we go thank you to the viewers for summing up the session nicely.
The “now, next, later” format might actually be one of the best formats I’ve come across to categorise the product roadmap. The final advise about ‘ask questions’ and ‘keep asking why’ will definitely help me through building @getspiti. Thank you @TheProductAngle @lizzielove 🙌🏽 https://t.co/zeZwv7PAhV
— Therese Maggie (@ThereseMaggie) July 10, 2020
@lizzielove and @pradipcloud on @TheProductAngle discussing "Who owns the roadmap?"
Building a roadmap is a collaborative effort. It requires input from the entire product team. However, a PM is the one who ensures the right content is in it and updates it regularly. #ProdMgmt
— Neeraj (@neeraj) July 10, 2020
@simplybastow's quoted:
"A product manager does not have all the answers but asks the best questions." #ProdMgmt #startups
— Neeraj (@neeraj) July 10, 2020
@lizzielove "Product is a risk game. Collaboration between teams reduces the risk of failure." @theproductangle @pradipcloud #prodmgmt
— Neeraj (@neeraj) July 10, 2020
Learn from experts. Watch other episodes of The Product Angle Show
In this episode of The Product Angle Show. We talk about Product Management and Digital Marketing with Rohit Prabhakar and Neeraj Mathur.
Some of the things we chat about include:
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In this episode of The Product Angle Show. We explore how to build and launch your idea in 24 hours with Zoe Chew.
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Hey 👋 no I mean HEY is the new email service from the Basecamp team. In this article we take a closer take look at Hey and answer the question: Hey – Is the new email service from Basecamp worth the hype?
What is your relationship with email?
What is HEY?
How HEY works?
How much does it cost?
Onboarding into HEY
Demo of HEY
Thoughts
Questions
HEY vs. Apple
Interesting tweets
Hey – Is the new email service from Basecamp worth the hype?
Do you remember your first email address? Way back when dial-up was a thing. My first email address was a Freeserve (I think) email. My memory is a little hazy. However, I needed Freeserve to access the internet and it came with an email address.
Later I changed my email to an AOL address and kept that for many years, even after Gmail became the standard. However, I finally gave in and jumped to Gmail when I was spending more time cleaning my spam emails than actually reading emails.
Changing email addresses takes a lot of work. Exporting, saving, or forwarding while modern tools have made it easier. However, you still need to spend some time in the process.
Also, shout out and credit to Ziyad who helped source an invite through James Hill-Khurana who kindly shared 1 of his invites with me to write this article now. 🙏
What’s interesting here is that HEY is not an email client. That’s why HEY isn’t an app that sits on top of Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, Yahoo, etc. HEY is a full email service provider. You don’t use HEY to check your Gmail account, you use HEY to check your HEY account. It’s its own platform, and it’s all you’ll need.
Currently, invite codes are required until their public launch in July 2020. To get a code, email iwant@hey.com and tell us how you feel about email. It could be a love story or a hate story. It could be long, could be short. It’s your story, so it’s up to you.
Email, in my opinion, is a very boring product. Somewhat functional if you will. Will HEY change that?
The last time anyone got excited about email was when Google launched Gmail back around 2005. Over 15 years ago, we’ve adapted to doing email in the status quo Gmail and Outlook way. Therefore, we have not seen any exciting developments recently.
However, if you are a Superhuman user, you might disagree. I’m not a Superhuman user, for me, I don’t have a big enough email problem that I need to spend $30 a month on. Although, some people I’ve spoken to love the Superhuman experience.
Back to Hey.
As per the CEO of HEY Jason, the waitlist for Hey passed 95,000 people. Clearly, email is a problem people are interested in exploring to solve.
Just passed 95,500 people on the HEY wait list. We’ve sent ~30k invites so far. MAYBE we can get through the rest next week, but it’s probably more like 7-10 days more until we’ve released them all. Thanks for your patience! https://t.co/Izp2mLKH4E
— Jason Fried (@jasonfried) June 20, 2020
To be on the waitlist you need to email hey@hey.com and tell them what email means to you. So this was not a box where you type in your email and hit submit. A little more effort is needed.
Will HEY become the defacto standard in email going forward?
Only time will tell.
HEY is a completely redesigned rethink on email and this is clear from their love letter on the homepage of HEY.
Hey everyone—
It’s 2020, we need to talk about email.
Email gets a bad rap, but it shouldn’t. Email’s a treasure.
It feels great to get an email from someone you care about. Or a newsletter you enjoy. Or an update from a service you like. That’s how email used to feel all the time.
But things changed.
You started getting stuff you didn’t want from people you didn’t know. You lost control over who could reach you. An avalanche of automated emails cluttered everything up.
Read the full love letter to email on HEY’s homepage.
Since HEY is a complete rethink on email it is very opinionated on how email *should* be. I don’t plan to go through all the features of HEY. If you’re interested in all the feature HEY has to offer read the Tour Features page on HEY’s site.
A few things that come to mind:
Well now it’s renamed to iMbox ok just Imbox
Before emails can get to your Imbox they are screened. This means the first time someone sends an email they land in the screener. You then decide if you want to “accept” the email or not (note: HEY refers to this as “where you decide if you want to hear from them or not.”)
Click yes and you’ll continue receiving their emails. Click no and you’ll never hear from them again.
Maybe I should have started here. In my opinion, this is the game-changer. Regardless of if you agree with it or not as more and more people adopt HEY you’ll likely start seeing more tweets of marketers using open tracking pixels.
The bigger question is does HEY have the chops to effectuate change or will marketers simply find ways around it?
Currently as far as I know, HEY has three tiers:
Which got me thinking what would p@hey.com cost? (or does HEY even allow a one character email address?).
Guess I’ll never know now that been onboarded onto the system. If you are someone just receiving your invite let me know on Twitter.
[Update: James informed me that single character emails do not seem to be supported, he tried.] 🙏
i won't say i'm not tempted but $999 per year is a liiiiitle much…. i'd pay it once though 😅 pic.twitter.com/D4SPt8dwXL
— Owen Williams ⚡ (@ow) June 16, 2020
Not going to duplicate efforts here, and honestly Jason does a fantastic job here anyway.
I haven’t been excited about email for a long time. It’s a form of communication that allows me to communicate with people asynchronously.
Earlier this year when the founders started “picking twitter fights” it became entertainment, however, clearly, the intent was around releasing HEY. Am I a big fan of picking fights? no. Did it work? I think so. It created so much attention that when HEY was eventually released it seemed to create FOMO.
My timelines were filled with HEY content, it became the new flex. I become a part of it.
Is it still cool to flex? 🤣 pic.twitter.com/3u9SOA9A7d
— Pradip Khakhar (@pradipcloud) June 19, 2020
While I’m not a fan of FOMO techniques, I do not believe HEY is intended to be a private club. I don’t know Jason or David and I do not have any inside information. These are purely my views.
Anyone who creates software knows when something new is released onboarding new (and early) users is vital. If users love the experience they will share with others (as currently being shared on Twitter).
However, more importantly, the stuff the users don’t see. The hours, and months (or years) behind creating this product. If the platform was to crash, the user experience will stink. People will write and share this. The negativity that comes with it has the potential to kill the product even before it gets off the ground.
Jason and David have made it clear that HEY is not an exclusive club and all invites will go out by July and then HEY will be made publically available in July. That I can respect.
To be very clear here, I’ve only used HEY for two days and I feel excited about using email again. Will it last? time will tell.
A couple of things that I’m excited to try out include the Send massive files without using other apps, Add private “notes to self” to any email thread, combined with Stick it to an email (could this turn into a simple CRM, or maybe I’m overthinking it), and Bundle dominating senders into one line.
This rethink of email is exciting and I can’t wait to dig into it deeper.
For me, the bigger question is can I unlearn the current way of thinking with Gmail?
Meaning, I am attached to my calendar and important emails are filed out using labels that somewhat represent a folder.
Above I mentioned that “Email, in my opinion, is a very boring product. Somewhat functional” however, that doesn’t describe the bigger picture.
Gmail and Outlook have a productivity eco-system around email. Think about it, email has become central to *nearly* everything we do.
Email ties into a number of things we do; sharing files, creating documents, spreadsheets, slides, Single Sign-On, sending and receiving meeting invites. The list continues, saving important confirmation numbers, think about all the other apps that have access to your email.
Email facilitates communication and collaboration.
Email is a fantastic place to start a productivity ecosystem. I’m excited to see where the team takes this next. I agree with what Hiten said:
Email has strong natural lock-in and retention when you power it at the core how @Google and @Microsoft do for businesses.
It’s also one of the best starts, if not the best to build out a productivity suite.
The https://t.co/whuhyoR0FB strategy is pretty sweet in this regard.
— Hiten Shah (@hnshah) June 21, 2020
Though I am very curious as to what Hey Postal Service is.
I can’t help but think about Slack right now. Slack at one point in time marketed itself as the email killer. HEY is clearly marketing email as a “treasure.”
Under the current iteration, HEY feels very much comparable to Slack, yet its positioned as email. I know it’s email with the Basecamp flavor.
For some reason which I cannot pinpoint exactly. Maybe I’m thinking of Campfire. In 2006, we [Basecamp] built Campfire to help businesses communicate better. It’s a simple, real-time web-based group chat tool that lets people set up password-protected chat rooms super quickly. Source Basecamp product history.
Could Campfire have become a billion-dollar business?
Was it a missed opportunity?
When I use HEY (for the limited two day’s I’ve been using it), my mind wonders into the Slack territory. It might be because I am customed to thinking email and a calendar go together.
Is it time to change that thinking?
If you choose to pay the $99 (or whichever tier you choose based on the number of characters in your email) after successful payment you’ll be taken to a page to set up 2FA. Nice touch. I’d be interested in learning how HEY has implemented this feature.
A few of questions come to mind that I don’t quite know how to address.
I’m a calendar person. Right now I live and die by the calendar. HEY doesn’t have a calendar. How can I change my workflow or do I need to use a separate calendar app. It totally makes sense if I was using Basecamp as I believe it has some calendar features.
As someone who has a small but growing newsletter, open rates have never been something I focus on. I’m more interested in people replying to my emails and conversations.
I use Mailchimp for my newsletter and every now and again I look at what stats are available in Mailchimp and one of the stats or options I have is the ability to trim the “inactive” readers. I am not a newsletter/ Mailchimp expert, however, from what I understand this is calculated using open rates. How will this feature work going forward?
As I mentioned earlier, I have no interest in the open rates, however, will I end up paying for contacts in my newsletter list that don’t actually open my emails and continue to receive my emails. Will this drive them to flag it as spam in Gmail?
Or will this impact my deliverability and my ability to land in the inbox or Imbox?
I don’t advertise on my newsletter however, many other people do. In a telegram group Paul Metcalfe and I are a part of. He discusses the above impact on his newsletter and also added advertisers want to estimate ROI based on how many people are going to see the ad and track conversions on who did see the ad (impressions > click > conversions).
Paul totally understands that people who receive emails might not want to be tracked so maybe it’s something newsletter owners need to be proactive about and find solutions to.
While I did not find an “official” roadmap, I believe that custom domains are on their roadmap. Meaning in addition to sending an email from say pradip@hey.com you’ll also be able to send emails from something like pradip@theproductangle.com. I’m going to go on a limb here and say that to add a custom domain you are looking at additional costs.
I’d love to see a deeper integration with Basecamp. I used Basecamp in the early days, however, when pricing moved to $99 per month. A fantastic deal for a small team, however, for just one person it was overkill. I recently tried Basecamp again as they launched a free tier. I really like basecamp.
Basecamp even has a “Hey” section in the header. Could we see a deeper integration? Could Basecamp and Hey be the *only* tools you need?
Upfront disclosure here, I’ve yet to download the HEY IOS app. I’m currently using an iPhone 8 Plus, it does the job and I’m running IOS version 12.1.2. The HEY IOS app requires IOS 13 and above.
Do I upgrade and risk slowing my iPhone down? Still thinking about it.
Recently Apple took issue with the HEY IOS app under its guidelines “Apple’s App Store policy, 3.1.1”. I don’t plan to go into it this issue in this article as its not the intent when I started writing this piece (and to be honest I have not had the time to follow the story).
However, it does deserve a mention and I hope both HEY and Apple can put this past them and do what’s right for users and customers.
Read Jason’s statement HEY CEO’s [Jason Fried] take on Apple’s App Store payment policies, and their impact on our relationship with our customers
Apple should absolutely keep improving the App Store, but most of the things listed here are already possible, they just require a bit more work. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ https://t.co/gZ8a19UA84
— David Barnard (@drbarnard) June 19, 2020
Let me get this straight…#HeyApp can be opinionated about what's okay and not okay in your email experience, but it's not okay/unfair for Apple to be opinionated in how it runs its @AppStore?
/cc @rahulvohra https://t.co/uoeF5g81CB
— Chris Messina (@chrismessina) June 20, 2020
This will be one of the biggest questions.
Those that have tried Hey, will you be paying once your trial ends?
— Marshall Haas (@marshal) June 20, 2020
Gmail user since April 18, 2005… the longest uninterrupted service in my life, besides being an American citizen.
switching to #HEY, @jasonfried @dhh @basecamp guide you along but as a user, it is a *big* behavioral change. i've developed some hard-wired habits after 15 years. pic.twitter.com/sUgxSzQS1r
— Harris Kenny (@harriskenny) June 20, 2020
I don't remember when I felt this excited trying out a new web product. This one specifically, is a fresh take on email. HEY puts consumers over businesses with privacy being a 1st class citizen of its ecosystem. 👍🏽 @dhh and @jasonfried. Now keenly waiting to see you defeat apple pic.twitter.com/D6zqmFMy0w
— Jai Pandya (@jaipandya) June 18, 2020
I’m not paying $99 a year for Hey.
Here’s why
If I circulate my Hey email I’ll be paying Basecamp $99 / year forever.
The tool is nice, their go-to-market was epic, but it’s not nearly game changing enough to warrant that kind of commitment.
— Mark Henderson (getacquired.com) (@MarkJHenderson) June 20, 2020
Get ready to see some open rates drop…
Not sure that's a good thing for newsletter writers that have the good practice to regularly clean their email lists by removing inactive subscribers 🙄 pic.twitter.com/XZtVQ2zThB
— Quentin Villard (@quentinvllrd) June 20, 2020
Is Hey ruining email marketing? Is this how email actually dies?
My answer (perhaps unsurprisingly) is no and also yes.
A thread: https://t.co/EOk5l8OW24
— Val Geisler (@lovevalgeisler) June 15, 2020
I use tracking pixels from ConvertKit to see who is engaging with my emails
I do everything I can to only send emails that subscribers want to receive and find valuable
If you use Hey, you’ll get more emails from me, which are less relevant, and not customized to your interests
— Tiago Forte (@fortelabs) June 21, 2020
From a product perspective, I am inspired by the way the team has rethought the email space. Full credit to Jason, David, and the rest of the team. If anyone has any connections to Jason or David, I would love to chat with them behind the HEY thinking on The Product Angle Show.
For me, the biggest plus point is the rethink of how we should be using our emails. Last year I had over 50K emails in my inbox and I used Leave Me Alone to unsubscribe from unwanted emails and then deleted most of the emails. I figured if it’s important the issue will surface back up.
At the time of releasing this, I’ve only used HEY for two days. Two days is not sufficient to fully make a decision as I’ve not had a chance to use all their features.
Would I pay $99 to keep my pradip@hey.com email? I’m very tempted, I have a great deal of respect for the team and I really want it to succeed. I’d love to follow along the journey at least from the perspective of a customer.
Right now I still have 12 days to decide.
Would I use it as my daily driver? It’s too early to tell right now. I would miss my calendar I have to research and read a little more on how the team intends to fill this void. (maybe a deeper integration with Basecamp? or an upcoming productivity suite?)
What are your thoughts on HEY? Is this something you’d pay for and keep? Let me know in the comments below. Or feel free to send me an email pradip@hey.com
