The Art & Science of Building World Class Tech Products

12 Lessons from the Startup Trenches

Amit Ranjan

Background My


"It takes a combination of art & science to build world class products.

Creating something from nothing requires an instinctive, artistic flair but scaling it massively requires a disciplined scientific approach"


Startup From First Principles

• A startup is a temporary organization searching for a repeatable & scalable business model Steve Blank"

Create Repeat Scale

Startup Life Cycle


Minimum Viable Product

MVP is an early version of the product that gives


Rationale for MVP: Startups # Perfect

"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product;, you've launched too late Reid Hoffman"

Product Market Fit (PMF)

PMF is the degree to which a product satisfies a strong market demand.


How do you know you have PMF?

Consumer PMF looks like*

• Organic growth
• Returning users 100s of users returning 3 days/week
• Clear path

Enterprise/SAAS PMF looks like*

• Freemium-to-paid conversion rate 5%
• LTV/ CAC ratio 3
• Monthly churn rate
• Clear path
Startup Funnel Metrics

Funnel metrics is visualizing the product's


Simplified Funnel Metrics

Stripped down version of Funnel Metrics

• Acquisition
• Retention
• Revenue

SlideShare version of Funnel Metrics*

• Distribution (Team distro")
• Engagement (Team "engage
• Monetization (Team "biz")
Speed Now. Scale Later.


• Speed is a startup's secret weapon
• Done Perfect
Virality Focusing on Width (v/s Depth)


• object to self replicate
• Single minded focus on new user acquisition
• Optimize viral loops
• Viral CoEfficient* > 1
Product Features (prioritizing for a product)

• Metrics movers
• Satisfiers
• Delighters

Product Roadmap (prioritizing overall product plan)

• Core
• Strategic
• Venture
Prioritizing Product Feedback

• One person's opinion (OPO) Highest paid person's opinion (HiPPO)
• Strong suggestion
• Mandate

The context for feedback as imp as feedback itself?

Focus on your core, Outsource non-core complexity



Cloud: AWS, Azure

• Hosting: Digital Ocean, Softlayer
• Billing: Braintree, Razorpay
• Analytics: Mixpanel, Clevertap
• Voice: Twilio

Engineers (by default) like building new shiny tech toys:) Don't Reinvent the Wheel:

Consumer v/s SAAS User Values Functionality


Manage the Holy Grail Failure, Risk, Ambiguity

Ambiguity

MVP, Lean, Agile are all ways to manage risk!


Connect

5

Let'=


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Thank You

• https: / /twitter com/amitranjan

References